


Closest Thing To Crazy

by spock2u



Category: Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Angst, Betrayal, Character Study, Dark Characterisation, Dark McCoy, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Erotica, Humor, Hurt Kirk, Hurt McCoy, Hurt Spock, Inspired by a Movie, M/M, Manipulative Sarek, Multi, Rape/Non-con Elements, Romance, dark themes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-24
Updated: 2017-09-27
Packaged: 2018-12-19 09:14:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 26
Words: 25,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11894622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spock2u/pseuds/spock2u
Summary: The Closest Thing To Crazy is the uncensored story of what happened in the woods after they sang "Row Row Row Your Boat" and toasted Marshmallows.  And the unfolding truth of what really lies between the three of them; what it is that binds Spock, Jim and McCoy into such a fundamental unity of being.





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> Author's Note:  
> This started off as a nice straightforward vignette, a homage to the three-soul relationship at the heart of Star Trek.  
> But, that Leonard McCoy, he's a tricky devil: a few lines into Chapter 3, he took over the story and told me he had another tale to tell entirely. So, hold on to your hats because, in many ways, I'm as much a passenger in this as you!  
> Only Bones knows where we're going, now. And how far we go, well that all depends on how much he wants to tell you about who he really is... "what he's seen, where he's been, what he's done".  
> Things to do with Spock and Jim that he’s been keeping under wraps for a very long time: things that make him Leonard McCoy.  
> \--
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> \--

Bones was well and truly fucked and he knew it. There were two sets of voices in his head and both were insisting he was insane. Insane to have ever contemplated this – not that there was a moment in the last umpteen years he hadn’t really ever not contemplated this; contemplating this was his favourite fucked up secret (or so he had thought) perversion. But surely, doubly, triply, irrevocably insane to have finally allowed himself to go – be taken - here. 

He rested his head back against the tree trunk and smiled, despite himself. After all these years. Shit, shoulda gone there, come here, done this sooner, one of his voices proffered, with a shit eating grin. 

Shut the hell up, you moron, the other voice said. What in the Sam Hill do we do now?? 

The forest was quiet around them and the embers of the fire that had earlier warmed them were almost spent but their diffuse dark orange glow and the reflected light from the moon that spilled down between the branches combined with his blown-wide pupils to give him something approximating a sense of night vision within their immediate vicinity. 

Spock, all 6’1’’ of him, all long lean muscle and unmessable ebony hair, almost untouched by the years that had taken their toll on the rest on humanity, lay close alongside him, the doctor’s arm around his shoulders and his head resting on the doctor’s chest. As stark bollock naked as he was. 

Spock languidly traced his fingers along the centre of the Doctor’s body down towards his navel with an untroubled and contented expression on his face that only Jim could see from his position, curled up like a cat on the good Doctor’s other side. Also stark naked, he rested his head on Bones’ thigh and let out a sigh of contentment. 

Bones groaned.

And wondered precisely how many ‘marsh melons’ Jim had stuck up his arse that evening. How many was immaterial. However many there had been he was entirely confident Spock had ably eaten every last one out. 

“Oh God.”

It was the smores that had started it. Everything had been going so well until the smores. What was it with Vulcans and chocolate?? And what did Jim think he was doing? He knew about chocolate. First, he had plied him with Romulan Ale then out came the chocolate. If he didn’t know better he’d start to think Jim had set all this up. No, wait.. He wouldn’t. They were married, for fuck’s sake. I mean, that was one of his major problems with this.

“Oh God.”

“Something wrong, Bones?”

“Life is not a Dream. Have some chocolate, Spock. How about a little Romulan Ale, Bones? Let’s play ‘Chase the Marsh Melon'? Followed by something not even my wildest fantasies could have conjured up? Are you quite sure this is not ‘a dream’, Jim?”

"And how come he never showed me his tongue was that long in all my medical exams, dammit!"

"Vulcan tongues, Doctor, are made of a tissue very similar to penile tissue. They .. extend .. and harden .. at times of arousal. And I was, and am, entirely aroused by you. The reaction can, of course, be suppressed through mental discipline but there are times when it is best to let physiognomy take its natural course." 

“Dear God, I knew there had to be a reason every time I go to Church I end up thinking about you; it’s the gargoyles...”

“Indeed, Doctor, there are stories of a pre-reform clan that visited your planet. It is entirely possible your people chose to immortalise them in that fashion.”

“I knew it! You're a Hobgoblin!”

Spock raised his head from the doctor’s chest and pulled him into a soft and gentle kiss. Bones eyes filled with tears.

“I didn’t realise there’d be kisses after,” he said, quietly.

“What, you thought we’d kiss, fuck, and leave? Plan a beautiful seduction under the stars of our very best friend and up and leave it at that?” said Kirk, teasingly incredulous.

“Frankly, yes.”

“No, Bones. Not gonna be like that.”


	2. Chapter Two

Jim lifted his right hand and intertwined his fingers with Bones’ left, his eyes never leaving his, as Spock slid down the doctor’s body, his tongue trailing long and green along his ribs and across his pelvis.

Bones eyes opened wide, his breath coming faster, as Jim’s eyes held his focus tight on a wire between them. And Spock, whom he’d loved if truth be told, from the moment he’d seen him, loved him – which is why he needled him, railed against him – because he couldn’t have him – because the Captain had his heart set on him, dammit, and the Captain, Jim, was his best friend, and how could he even contemplate doing that to him? – and Spock, gorgeous, unobtainable, forever forbidden Spock, took his wrung-out balls into his hot Vulcan mouth and chewed and growled and sucked and tongued them back into life and the Captain was kissing him, his Jim, his golden boy, his golden God, also can’t have him, he’s the Captain for Chrissakes, besides you gave up Spock so Jim could have him so making a move on Jim would be really stupid wouldn’t it Leonard, you’re just going to be old and lonely forever after all it’s what you deserve after ... and besides, you’re straight, God dammit!

Jim reached out with his left hand and intertwined his fingers with Spock’s right hand, making a bridge between them as he kissed Leonard like he’d always wanted to be kissed; his friend, his mentor in many ways, his inseparable. Bones was a part of him just as much as Spock was. Oh, not of his heart in the same way Spock was, that was true. There was and could only be one T’hy’la. But theirs was also a three way soul. And Bones was an inextricable part of it. Maybe they were heart, logic, and passion. Maybe that was it. Maybe it wasn’t that easy to sort out. They were a sort of triumvirate, it’s true. Three in one. But they were also gestalt; when they were together, they were more than the sum of their parts. He’d encountered that with Spock. Oh what a glorious ‘coming together’ that had been. The beauty of their first meld and then the incomparable power and majesty of their bond. And they’d had years of beauty together. 

But lately, in the bond, in the link that they’d shared, they’d become aware of a third figure. ‘The Shadow Man’ Jim had called him. But who was he? Why was he there in their minds with them, in their link, in their marriage bond? And why did he look so ill? He’d questioned Spock about it. Spock had said it was because he was shut out, and he was dying of loneliness. This response had gone through Jim like a knife, like a blade. No! It couldn’t be! It mustn’t be allowed to be! The Shadow Man was special – otherwise he wouldn’t be in the link, in their minds, in their special place. Surely, Spock saw that? 

Spock had seen it very clearly – and knew precisely who he was. He’d been deliberately shutting him out for years. Ever since his mind had first penetrated the Captain’s and beheld the wonder that was T’hy’la he had ruthlessly sought to exclude Leonard from his affections. He pondered briefly the quantum mechanics involved in the fact that by mere observation he had initiated the bond that would tie them together forever. If he hadn’t seen it, if he hadn’t encountered Jim’s extremely dynamic mind and discovered they fit together like two strands of DNA, things could have been different. But he had. Kaiidth. 

A friendship of sorts had been in the process of forming between them and Leonard had not reacted well when he informed him that Jim was destined by ‘Weird Vulcan Hoodoo’ to be his bond-mate. It had been hard. Bitter words were spoken and continued to be spoken, throughout the 5-year voyage - and beyond - until it was ‘simply the way things were’ with them. Their ‘bitter words’ were almost code for love. Almost, but not quite. 

And now someone was here at last, building a bridge between them, and that someone was his beloved T’hy’la. He who was before all things and all others. He who had necessitated them apart was bringing them together. How could this be? 

(‘It can be. Spock, because the Universe itself demands it. Otherwise, why would he be here in our space? How could he be here?’) 

Logically illogical. Just like Love.

Leonard gasped and grasped for Spock’s remaining free hand, their fingers also entwining, completing a circle between the three of them, as Spock continued his ministrations to his balls. Goddammit if he wasn’t convinced he was trying to swallow them. Hell, if he wasn’t a hairsbreadth from letting him bite them off or do any other damned thing he wanted to so long as he. Just. Didn’t. Stop. 

He stopped. And took the entire length of Bones’ aching cock straight down his throat. Sucking him deep, swallowing, swallowing; his Vulcan larynx milking the head of him as the good doctor bucked and thrust up, crying out his name into the night air as he came.


	3. Chapter Three

No one let go of anybody’s hands. It was, thought Jim, a mystical circle of power, love, and reconciliation. If he could have bottled that moment to keep in a jar as a keepsake forever, he would have done just that.

“Jim...”

Jim snapped himself from his moment of reverie and realised with a shock that all was not well in his Garden of Eden. Bones was looking down at Spock, now releasing the doctor’s softening penis from between his lips, with a look on his face that was bordering on approaching panic. 

Jim leaned forward to kiss his lips twice gently in reassurance. 

“It’s alright, love. Honest, it is.” he said with a murmur.

Bones eyes drilled down into his, double-checking that was so.

This was suddenly one skittish horse beneath them. 

‘Tread carefully. Reassure him. He’s starting to spook.’ Jim said to Spock across their link. 

Spock, already aware of this, brushed a line of tenderness up Leonard’s belly and scooted up to kneel at his side, his own erect and verdant cock visibly bobbing in his lap the moonlight. He leant into his ear and whispered, “Ashal-veh, forgive us for not coming to you sooner.”

Bones closed his eyes, resigned himself to his fate ... then banged his head sharply and deliberately back against the tree truck. He looked at his friends; at Jim, looking back so earnestly at him, then at Spock, for all the world looking at him like a green-cocked elfish puppy of love, then back at Jim. And broke out a grin that went from ear to ear and practically illuminated the entire clearing. 

“What the hell am I resisting for?”

He chortled inside at his own stupidity.

“Alright then. Just promise me, both of you. Promise me one thing... “

Then he remembered. And the grin dropped from his face like a piano from an aeroplane. And all the lights went out.

“Oh ...”

His hands shook in their shared grip and he let go, pulled his legs up to his chin, and wrapped his arms tight around himself. 

“Oh.”

Overcome, by demons he could not name, he curled up into a tight ball and rested his chin on his knees, utterly broken.

“Bones, what is it?”

He shook his head sharply.

“Can’t do this.”

“Why not?”

He shook his head again. Miserable as sin.

“Let’s just ... leave it as a Buddy Fuck.” he said softly. “Ok, Jim? Spock? We went camping, we had a ritual sing-a-long, and we had a good time singing it. Then we went to bed and got some sleep. Just some good old friends fooling around in the dark in a forest with some smores and the suchlike. Nothing wrong with that. I'm sure everyone does it once in a while.” 

He hoped neither of them could hear the hitch in his voice or see the tears in his eyes - or sense how close he was to a world of hysteria. He was of course utterly wrong.

A whole world of questioning and information exchange was taking place between Spock and Jim across their bond:

‘What’s wrong? I thought we were .. on the right course. Spock?’ Spock! What happened?? Spock! Fix this! Please!’

‘If you will just .. please, quieten a little, Ashaya I am attempting to ascertain the precise cause of Leonard’s distress through the light telepathic contact I have with him as a result of my hand being on his foot.’

‘I know! Don’t you know what’s wrong yet? Can you fix it yet??’

‘Not yet, Ashaya. I am just about to find out. I do not want to intrude and can only do a surface scan and have to sift the information I am receiving...’

‘Please, get a move on, I'm highly concerned!’

‘As am I, Ashaya. If you will just .. ’

‘Spock!’

‘...Shut up, Jim! ...’

“Get out of my mind, Spock” growled Bones in a low voice that startled them both.

“That’s exactly what I don’t want. That’s why we can’t do this, dammit!”

He kicked Spock’s hand away, a picture of misery.

“Don’t touch me, Spock! With any part of you. Mind or body. Promise or I'm outta here right now.” 

Spock nodded his assent and folded his hands in his lap, over his sex, adopting a contemplative position at the side of his friend.

“Can I still touch?” asked Jim, gently.

“Depends where.”

Jim wrapped himself around Leonard’s knees, cuddling up alongside him, facing towards him, his expression one of pure compassion and concern for his friend. Had they gone too far? Too much too soon? What had happened?

“Going to tell me what’s going on in that head of yours. Bones? Love?”

He kissed Leonard’s hand.

Bones let out a sigh that was as old as the wind.

“A man needs some dignity in old age, Jim. Even if that’s the only thing he’s got left to warm him. Sometimes, privacy ...” He laughed bitterly. “... is the only thing that keeps a man sober and sane; the fear that he might give away all his secrets if he got too drunk or goes insane, the fear of what his friends – and enemies – would think of him if they knew the truth about what makes him tick. Where he’s been. What he’s done... “


	4. Chapter Four

“What are you talking about, Bones? You’re not old.”

“I'm six years older than you, Jim.”

“Six years, two months and two days older than you, Jim.”

“Shut up, Spock!” they both said, in unison.

“So you’re pushing what? 60? So what? That’s just middle-age these days. Besides,” he said with a chuckle, “we’ve all seen that your refractory time is faster than mine tonight.”

Bones did allow himself a grin at that.

“Yea, well, I had a lot saved up.”

“May I ask a question, Leonard?”

“You can ask it, Darlin’.”

“Why do you save it up?”

Bones looked down and took the opportunity to examine his fingernails.

He looked from one set of enquiring eyes to the other.

“You two really want to get down to the heart of it, dontchya.”

As one voice, “Yes.”

Reading his mind, purely as one old friend reads the mind of another they have known for longer than they have been themselves, Jim reached down besides the tree and retrieved a beaker containing the Saurian Brandy, and passed it to Bones who gratefully took a large swig.

“Where angels fear to tread, eh? OK. Seeing as you asked. I keep my body to myself these days because, despite my very best endeavours, if my heart’s not in it, my head and my dick don’t want to know, and there’s only so much humiliation a man can take. And I'm not just talking about ‘getting it up’ – there’s drugs for that, as you well know. There ain’t no drug for getting your head to want it though. Oh, I know there’s PFs, drugs to make you ‘horny as a Vulcan at their ‘special time’’ but you got to live with yourself the next day and there’s only so much self-disgust a man can take. Truth of the matter is if my heart’s not in it I don’t want it and I'd just as soon not have it because it only reminds me of what I don’t have. So I don’t do it and prefer to keep myself to myself I guess. Seemed best after a while and I just got used to it. Kept myself detached. Watched the rest of the human race running around like horny little gadflies, catching this and that. Seemed better out of it, letting my heart callous over. Heal from the hurts inflicted. The .. uh ..” he coughed and drained the last of the brandy. “intrusions and enforced separations of the heart.”

“Hey listen to me, I'm a poet!” and laughed a bitter laugh.

“Pardon me if this is a somewhat vacuous question, Ashal-veh, but without the benefit of direct physical contact it is difficult for me to process the meaning of these words about emotions ... are you saying that you asked to cease physical congress with myself and Jim because your heart is not involved? Forgive me, but that did not seem to me to be the case. My impression was in fact entirely the opposite, that your heart was as involved in the situation as was .. is .. my own and Jim’s.”  
Any claim otherwise seems to me to reek of _sasnem pa-tukh.”_

Both Bones and Jim could clearly hear the hurt in Spock’s enquiry.

“Crap, I'm making a pig’s ear out of this aren’t I? No, Love...” He ran a finger down the side of Spock’s cheek.

“Just the opposite.”

He reached to cup Jim’s face in both hands.

“Both of you.”

“You’re so damned ..”

His voice broke.

“..precious to me.”

Jim took his hands in his.

Bones looked from one to the other.

“Don’t you get it?” his voice practically a whisper now. “The two of you are the reason I can’t _be_ with anyone else. I can’t find either of you _in_ anyone else.”

Spock looked down to give him emotional privacy whilst Jim fought the urge to pull him into his arms and rock him forever and asked, instead, one more question.

“Then why, when we’re offering ourselves to you, on a plate, not just for a night but for keeps, Len, why do you pull away from us?”

“Ain’t that the million credit question."

 

 


	5. Chapter Five

He drained the last of the Saurian Brandy from the beaker.

“Protection.”

“Self-protection? You don’t need to protect yourself from us, Len. Haven’t you been listening? We want to bring you _in_. We love you. We cherish you. We want to share our lives with you, damn it. That’s what ‘all this’ has been building to!”

Jim was starting to get frustrated.

_‘Softly, Ashaya, I sense this is .. more complex than you can imagine.’_

_‘Okay, Okay...’_

Bones smiled, ruefully.

“It’s you who isn’t listening, Darlin’. I'm protectin’ myself from being the one who opens up a barrel of hurt on the two of you. A barrel of hurt that there’s no good reason for the two of you ever to be to know about.”

“I’ve got things in here, you see ...” he tapped the side of his head, self-deprecatingly. “Things I’ve been keeping from ya. “

He interrupted Spock’s interruption before he could make it.

“I’ve got some Vulcan mind tricks of my own, Spock. Something I was shown how to do when it happened, and I'm a fast learner. Good at it, too. How to put memories - and thoughts too – put ‘em in boxes. ‘Privacy boxes’, he called them. And then seal ‘em off behind a wall or bury them under a field of pansies for everyday protection from you, Spock. Or any other Vulcan I come across...”

Spock raised every eyebrow he possessed.

_‘Do we have ‘boxes’?’_

_‘No, Jim, we do not.’_

_‘That’s good. I didn’t think we did.’_

_‘There is nothing hidden from the other in a T’hy’la bond, Ashaya. Even between the highest adepts.’_

_‘Didn’t think so. How’s he do that? Can I do that? Learn to hide stuff from your Dad for instance?’_

_‘I doubt that very much, Jim.’_

_‘Damn, That’d be a useful skill to have. He can read me like a book.’_

_‘Indeed.’_

“... That is quite some feat, Doctor. One that would be well beyond most humans, even after years of study in the Vulcan arts.”

“Yeah, well, seemed easy enough to me, once shown how. And when it’s learn or lose real quick, you tend to learn real quick.”

“Look, no disrespect Spock, but I really can’t talk about this in front of you. It’s like opening up a can of worms in front of a hungry trout. And I don’t want you wiggling on this line.”

There was a slow nod from Spock. Jim suspected he understood far more about what was going on than he did. His confusion must have shown on his face because...

“Jim, I'll spell it out for you. There’s nothing I’ve wanted more in my life than to be with the both of you. And, my understanding of what you’re offering me is ‘to know and be fully known’, right? Real bona-fide, straight up, nothing hidden, nothing held back, love with a capital L.”

“Yes. That’s what we want. What we’re offering. Why we’re here.”

Spock looked up and nodded once more.

With a finger waggling in the air, Bones retorted; “See, that there; _that’s_ my problem. Can’t do that. And I sure as hell won’t take nothing less. And that, Gentlemen, is why I'm a fucking eunuch.”

Bones laughed.

There was a silence as everybody absorbed the full logic of what had been said.

“Perhaps, Doctor,” ventured Spock. “If I retreated awhile? I can go into a meditative state ... one in which I will be entirely unaware of what is being said here. I feel...”

Jim noticed his micro-smile and returned it as he said the word ‘feel’.

“... it would be beneficial to you to talk to Jim without my complicating presence here.”

“Oh Darlin’, I'm so sorry. I'm hurtin’ you sayin’ even this much.” Bones reached out to touch his face again, briefly.

“You’re right. It’d be so much easier that way...  but what about your link. Won’t you still...?”

“Not while he’s meditating, Bones. He’s away with the fairies then.”

“And I can leave the door of the bond between Jim and myself .. sealed .. when I awaken. It will be .. somewhat difficult, not to mention strange but it will not have anything but the shortest of detrimental effects on us ..”

Bones frowned.

“ ..the equivalent of a bruise..”

“I consent to that. Yes that’s fine by me.”

“...and if it is what you wish, after you have talked the matter through with Jim, I can remove the memory of it from his mind, before I reopen the communication pathways between our deeper selves. So I will not know what has transpired as Jim will have forgotten it.”

Bones blinked and began to consider considering the possibility.

 “I only ask, Doctor...”

Spock lifted his downcast eyes to look him directly in the soul.

“...that you talk _fully_ to Jim. Please, _Ashal-veh_ ,...” his eyes an unguarded, pure and open plea for mercy...

“...if there is _any_ way, it is imperative we find it...” and the hand that began to reach for him then drew back for fear of sensing what was disallowed to him broke Bones heart all over again.

“It has taken us so long to get here, love, it’d be a shame to fall at the final hurdle. If there’s any way we can get past this, we should. And, if we can’t, then Spock and I'll at least remember we tried, right? Instead of always thinking, ‘what if’, we’ll know we tried at least to go there and for some real good reason it wasn’t able to be. Come on, give us at least that, Len. We’re begging you.”

Bones knew when he was beaten.

“Seems to me you two got me well and truly corralled here,” he sighed.

“You want to know why we can’t do this and then be mind-wiped but at least remember there’s a good reason, seems only fair to you, except I got to go through the horror of telling you about it and watching your face and seeing you change in the light of what I tell you.”

‘Seems a man can only run from something for 20 years before it catches up with him’, he thought to himself.

“Giving one of you a brief glimpse of Hell in return for a taste of Heaven? Don’t seem like a fair trade to me but what do I know. Hell.  If you want it, you got it. I guess I'm due a brief spell in purgatory for the taste of Heaven you’ve given me.”

He paused and looked at Spock who had already reached for one of the candles they had used earlier and was lighting it in preparation for meditation.

“You gonna get him a coat or something, Jim? He’s gonna catch his death if he meditates like that.”

 

 


	6. Chapter Six

Having persuaded Spock into a blanket wrap and a black woolly hat before he lost him to the clanging steel door that slammed shut between their minds as he slipped apologetically into the deepest meditative state he’d seen him enter outside of a Vulcan Healing Trance, Jim felt terribly alone all of a sudden. And full of foreboding.

What he was going to do with himself and Bones now, frankly, he hadn’t a clue. Not having a clue what to do was not a natural state for the Captain. Here he was, standing naked in the middle of their camp, his hands on his hips, winging it. Not good enough. What to do next? Think man!

Bones was still curled up at the base of the tree, clutching the empty brandy beaker, gazing mournfully at Spock. ‘Okay, first things first. Get him away from the cause of the immediate problems: get him away from Spock...’

“Len!”

No response.

“Bones!”

Bones looked up.

“Get your ass over here, Leonard, and help me zip these sleeping bags together. If we’re going to talk, we might as well do it in the warm!”

Bones put down his beaker, smiled grimly - like a man going to his own funeral – and got up, leant across and kissed the top of Spock’s woolly-hatted head.

“Wish me luck, Spock,” he said softly. “Into the valley of death rode the one who’d blundered.”

~"~

 He stoked the fire for a bit - as a way of putting off the moment when he had to climb into the sleeping bag with Jim. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to. It was just that he didn’t want to. It ought to be so simple. It was something they’d done a thousand times before. Well, maybe not a thousand. But plenty. Two bodies. Two buddies. Keeping each other warm. Nothing unusual in that. The Captain and the Doc. Perfectly natural. Ice caves. Cliff caves. Desert caves. There seemed to have been a lot of caves. Tents in the desert. Rooms on Risa. The Captain’s Quarters when Jim was having nightmares. Ah. Now we’re going to get down to the nub of it, damn you, Psyche.

“Stop poking the fire and get in here with me,” said Jim. “I’ve got more Brandy to warm you ..”

“.. And help loosen my tongue?”

“That too.”

He climbed into the sleeping bag and allowed Jim to zip it, proprietorially, around them. It was quite cosy and had a hood-like canopy that pulled up over their heads. There were pillows. It was big enough for three. He realised this must be where they’d all supposed to have ended up .. together.

He felt incomparably sad. And wretched. And rancid to the very depths of his soul. At least Jim would never remember any of this. And telling him was his punishment, right? It was only right there should be punishment involved after evading it for so long.

He knocked back all of the latest beaker of brandy without drawing breath.

“Steady on, Len. Let me at least sip mine first before we refill.”

“Sorry, Jim.”

Jim poured half of his into Leonard’s beaker and they lay down beside each other, two middle-aged men lying flat on their backs, each holding the other’s hand where they met in the middle, their other hands each around a beaker of brandy at rest on their respective stomachs, one noticeably higher than the other.

Jim spoke first.

“So...”

“So.”

“So...?”

“Tortuous, ain’t it.”

“Now you come to mention it, yes. What’s up, Len?”

A pause and a brief smile on Bones’ lips.

“What, “What’s up Doc?” too clichéd for you, there?”

Jim turned to look at his good friend Len with a smirk. Bones, in turn looked at Jim. And the tension dissolved into giggles. And then heart-felt guffaws. And then Len was crying. And then Jim had him wrapped in his arms. And, “Oh Bones...” his heart was breaking and he wondered if it would ever mend.

“Bones... Len. my gentle Leonard...”

He only knew Jim was cradling him and he didn’t deserve it and .. soft words and warmth and wrapped legs and curled right around him and sobbing. And rocking. And gentleness where none was deserved.

~"~

It was a long time before he could breathe again. ‘Come on, let it all out,’ Jim had said. ‘I’ve got you’ Jim had said. He’d allowed himself to be comforted by those words, for the sake of his sanity. He had to let go some of the pain, he knew it. He never had. Use this purgatory opportunity to let go of some of this pain. Use Jim again. Use him before he finds out. Let him comfort you. Then let him know. Then let him be brain wiped. At least you’ll have lanced this abscess at your core, Doc. Taken some of the pressure off. Let out some of the poison. So yes, yes, use him again. Let him comfort you. Then tell him what you did. Then tell him what was done Then tell him what happened after that. Three cock crows, you Judas. The three unforgivable sins of Leonard McCoy.

Let the lancing begin.

 


	7. Chapter Seven

“Come on, Len. Breathe. Shhh. Yes, breathe. It’s okay, I’ve got you.”

Hands everywhere. Clutching him to a big, soft, generous chest. Pulling his cold, old, bony frame into Jim’s warm, lush, amplitude. Cradling his head. Kissing his hair. Rocking him sane again. This dear, dear, generous man who he loved so very much. Whom he’d wronged so very much. Who he’d taken from selfishly when he was supposed to be giving, taken from under the pretence of giving. Oh gods. Whom he’d used. “First, do no harm”. Primum non nocere. Or, to put it another way, “given an existing problem, it may be better not to do something, or even to do nothing, _than to risk causing more harm than good_ ”. Every doctor’s ‘prime directive’. Oh gods. He was a man who’d taken a lot of risks. And not all of them selfless. Every one of them ate at him. Some more than others. Ones involving people he loved ate through him like caustic soda. And he loved James Kirk with all his soul.

He clutched at Jim like a drowning man at a life raft. Allowing him to draw him from the cold waters he clung to him and allowed himself to be comforted.

“It’s ok, Len. Come on. I mean, it’s obviously bad. But there’s nothing you can’t tell _me_.” He cradled him as he talked.

“All those long nights in the early days on the Enterprise, Bones. Just talking. You and me. When the nightmares started, you could have declared me ‘unfit for duty’. I'd have lost everything. But not you. You just took over from Mark Piper like you’d always been there, read my sealed notes, and invited me in for a chat. Remember that? Sealed the door, passed me a brandy, and said, “Start telling me the truth about Tarsus IV, Captain, and I promise I'll help with the nightmares.” Remember that? I did the guppy thing, of course. Mouth opening and closing, and then stating categorically that I had no idea what you were talking about as ‘the truth’ was exactly as per my official records. Then downing the brandy and letting myself out. You remember that, right?”

Bones nodded, relaxing miserably into his comfort.

“And within a week you were in my quarters almost every night, staying with me ‘til dawn, responding to garbled requests for help over the ‘com at unknown hours of the night. And I started to open up to you and tell you about all the things that had happened to me there, as a boy, do you remember that?”

How could he not?

Tarsus IV was a small, irrelevant, out of the way – pissant - colony planet that everybody had heard of: you was always said it with the word ‘the’ before and the word ‘massacre’ after it. Jim had spent some of his youth there. In 2246, when Jim was 13, there’d been an outbreak of some hitherto unknown fungal blight and, over the course of a few weeks, it had spread across the colony until all the planted crops and grown food resources had become tainted and ruined. The farmers and colonists had no choice but to abandon their farms and homesteads and retreat to the central city with what little untainted foodstuffs they had. Kodos, the Planetary Administrator was making plans to house and look after everyone there, until the Federation relief ships came.

He’d seemed a kindly man, welcoming everyone, often in person, taking their foodstuffs from them at the gates, sending it off for cataloguing and suitable fungus-proof storage where it could be kept and then shared out for the benefit of everyone. Making sure, via his administrators, that everyone had a place to wash and to sleep and a room to call home. And toileting facilities. And everybody’s medical needs were accurately assessed and logged. And everyone’s education details taken. And their ethnic backgrounds. All very efficient. And help would be there soon, he’d said.

When all 8000 inhabitants of the colony were safe inside the city and he’d had a chance to look at the lists of everybody’s needs, Kodos had divided the people into two groups. There was only enough food, he said, to feed everybody every other day. But it would be all right, he’d said. The ‘revolution of the people’ was the key to their successful survival. And on Day 1 of The Revolution, 4000 people met and ate within the walls of the Grain Market, just outside the main city gates - the only place big enough to house 4000 people at once - and 4000 did not. Kodos made a speech saying, “The Revolution is successful. Survival depends on drastic measures; this is how we will succeed.” And everybody applauded, both the fed and the unfed who listened to the speech over the city PA system. The 13-year-old James Kirk had been amongst the unfed. But that was okay because he was going to be fed tomorrow.

On Day 2 of The Revolution, the remaining 4000 gathered within the walls of the Grain Market, ready to be fed. They wondered why there were armed guards around the perimeter. They weren’t expecting the people who were fed yesterday to demand to be fed today: everyone had agreed to be fed every other day. Kodos came out to speak.   
“The Revolution is successful. But survival depends on drastic measures. Your continued existence represents a threat to the well-being of Society. I have determined that you are either expendable or unworthy of life. Leaving you alive means slow death for the more valuable members of our Colony. I have no alternative therefore but to sentence you to death. Execution to be carried out immediately.”

And with that, guards had raised automatic weapons and started to fire and didn’t stop firing until everyone was down and the ground was red with blood.

Jim had only survived by hitting the floor the second he realised what was happening, by using the bodies of others to soak up bullets, by hiding motionless under corpses and then slipping away down a sewer conduit with a handful of other terrified blood-soaked, some injured, survivors, mostly children, when the guards had lain down their weapons and started stripping and butchering the bodies nearest them for meat.

The massacre was the extent of what most people knew about Tarsus IV. His survival of it, followed by months of grubbing around for scraps and near starvation before Federation ships arrived, was all that was on Jim’s Official Records.

You’d think that would be enough to explain his night terrors, right? But the universe is a cold and ruthlessly cruel place for a pretty boy and had much more in store for Jim there than was reflected in his record. I'd seen that much the first time I ever laid eyes on him.

I'd made it my business to save his damned soul and now here he is, trying to save mine, goddamn fool that he is. Lost it awhile back, Jim-boy. Nothing left to save, dammit.

 


	8. Chapter Eight

“Oh gods, Jim. Is that where we’re going to start?”

He pulled himself out of Jim’s arms and sat there, like a cross-legged gnome, with the canopy tight over him like a turtle shell, nowhere further to back away to.

“So be it. Brandy me.”

Jim dutifully brandied him.

“Is there any alcohol in this cos it don’t seem to be touchin’ the sides tonight?”

“42% by volume.”

“Weak as French pussy-foot. Where’s the strong stuff when a man needs it.”

“You’re burning it off in adrenaline, Len.”

He reached for his friend and shook him gently by the shoulders.

“Dammit, _talk_ _to me._ Bones. There is nothing you can’t tell me. Nothing. Do you hear me?”

Bones looked at him: harsh daggers. Jim thought he had never seen eyes so .. what was it? Bleak.

“You think a lot of me, dontchya, Jim.”

“You know I do.”

A gentle hand on his. Hazel eyes, all concern. Such trust.

“You trust me, Jim?”

“With my life.”

“You shouldn’t.”

“Why?”

“You don’t know me.”

“Don’t give me that... Of course, I know you!”

Time to puncture that trust.

“Balls, you do. Remember those nights you were just talking about? When you were having the ‘mares and had no one to turn to but me, good ol’ Bones, who’d promised to help you fix ‘em?”

“Yes.”

“How you’d told the truth to about Tarsus, bit by stuttering bit. About grubbing for food, going on missions to the city to get food for the kids you was looking after in the hills and caves, about getting caught by the guards and having to “improvise” and how that was where you learnt to turn a trick, ‘fellatio for food’ you’d called it, ‘bout how a good looking boy like you, with the golden hair and the .. the swaying hips and the pout could do things for the guards now Kodos had killed off most of the women, how that made you _feel_...”

_‘Jesus, what am I doing. Why am I throwing it in his face like this?’_

“Yes.”

“... how contrary to what people would think, that didn’t make you feel dirty at all. No, that that made _you_ feel powerful, the people’s all conquering, indefatigable, undefeatable hero returning from his perilous missions with .. food for the free, having freely done unthinkable, terrible things for them to get it. And you, you let the young women in your group comfort you, didn’t you. Comfort you for the terrible unnatural things you had to do to get food for everybody. And you let them worship you with their tits and their fannies and .. any other part they cared to rub against you – and you fucking loved it.”

Jim physically backed off some, as far as the confines of the sleeping bag would allow, at least, harried by the onslaught of words.

“.. Loved it just fine ‘til the day one of the guards decided fellatio weren’t doing it for him and _raped_ you and called all his buddies over for a taste of the same when he was finished with you. Didn’t love it so much for the next month when they kept you chained in that cellar and sold your golden ass ‘round and ‘round the oh so willing colonists time and time again ‘til you were looser than an Orion Whore and pretty much the same colour from the beatings. Didn’t love it so much then, did you. Wondered if you’d ever be able to crap normally again or whether it’d just run out of you for always. If there’d be an always. Begging them to end you all the time. Not so golden then.”

“OK! That’s enough, Bones. Thank you!”

Jim ran his hand through his hair, and exhaled, not much liking the forcible rerun through some of his worst memories.

“Jesus, Bones!”

He paused, trying to regain some sense of demeanour, before attempting to bring things back to point:

“What has this got to do with you? Right here and now, I mean?”

“Oh Jim...”

“I mean, it was you who helped me get over all that.”

He tried to sup gently at his own brandy, shaken by the verisimilitude of Bones’ words. Tried to make his hands not shake.

“Right. Yea, I sure did, didn’t I. Li’le ol’ selfless me.”

“Yes, dammit. You _did_. You listened to me talk about how .. dirty .. I felt. How I always stuck to one-night stands because .. it was easier that way. Because I didn’t have to show people the real me. Tell people what had happened. Show them how .. sullied .. I was. What I was really like: Kodos’ little  .. “

Jim’s voice hitched even now, 40 years later.

“..whore. “

“Oh crap. Bones, when I slipped my shackles that day, I did it with the intention of getting shot, not...”

“I know Jim...”

Even now, he couldn’t not comfort him and he despised himself for it all the more.

“..it’s just .. I was naked, and running, and they were chasing me and I ducked into this archway and he was there, coming down some stairs in this building I'd run in to and it was Kodos! And he looked at me, and he took it all in. In a moment he understood what was going on.”

_“You’ve been their whore?” he said._

_”Yes.”_

_“They’re after you and are going to kill you?”_

_“Yes” I'd said._

_“Do you want to live?” he’d said._

_“Yes” I'd said._

_“Do you_ give yourself over to me _, absolutely_ willingly _, body and soul,_ unreservedly _to be my whore, boy?”_

_“Yes” I'd said._

“And when the guards came rushing in a moment later I was under Kodos’ right arm, protected, and he said, “Run along, he’s with me now.” And they just .. saluted, Bones. Even now, that’s what amazes me most. They just saluted and went away.”

****


	9. Chapter Nine

“And so began your life as Kodos’ whore.”

“Ah, childhood. And the things that make a man a man.”

Jim took another swig of the brandy.

“But I still don’t get how any of _that_ is about you, Len. It’s not. It’s all about me.”

Bones reached out to touch his cheek.

“One word, lovely boy: ‘ _Context’_.

“How’d you mean?”

“No point just saying, ‘Hey Jim, I betrayed you when I was acting as Ship’s Counsellor to you, over your time on Tarsus IV’ if we both don’t remind ourselves precisely what we’re talking about, is there.”

Jim blinked.

“Betrayed me? You saved me, Len. If it wasn’t for you I'd never have been who I’ve been, never have escaped that morass of negative thinking, that way of seeing myself as, how was it I used to put it?”

“.. _’Something someone had blown their nose on and then discarded’_ was one of the more polite ones, as I recall.”

“Ah yes, the stain that never comes out.”

“You’re a walking testament to the powers of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, Jim.”

“Bullshit, Bones. I'm a walking testament to the power of your restorative love.”

_‘Ah, the smile that can thaw icebergs. Won’t work on me this time, Jim.’_

“Bullshit, Jim. I just did my job is all. And anything that might have started off noble about it, I blew that.”

Jim had been about to swallow a sip of brandy as Bones spoke those words. He ended up inhaling it - then choking and snorting it out of his nose.

“You might want to choose your words more carefully there, Bones,” he said, still laughing. “I remember where our ‘therapy’ sessions ended up!” And a happy, shit-eating grin to boot.

“Wait, is that what’s eating you up? Because we made love at the end of it?”

Jim reached for his friend and held his face in both hands.

“Bones. Leonard. What you did. What we did. It made me clean again.”

He kissed his friend softly and released him. Still chuckling.

“Len, I can’t have you angsting about _that_! That’s one of the best memories of my entire life, man! Don’t you get it?”

Truly incredulous.

“I thought we went through all this at the time, Len? Straight afterwards and over the next week or so when we .. you know. ‘Talked things out’ and you said you were basically straight and couldn’t have a relationship with the Captain but that we’d always be close friends, better than friends ... you know. ‘All that’?”

He leant up against his friend and held him close in the dark. Cherishing him.

“What you did... you showed me I was _clean_ _again_. In a way nothing else could. Don’t you remember? Months of therapy, excising my demons, holding me whilst I wept, screamed, defecated .. remembered and excised, with your help, what they had done to me. You helped me see what it was, that it was  ‘something they had done to me’. That it was something _external_. Something _imposed_ upon me. Not a facet of _me_. It wasn’t part of ‘who I was’. Not something ‘I had done’. Not something for me to _own_. It was _their_ shame, not mine. You told me I was still in there, still alive under all that shit. What was it you called me? ‘A Pearl of Great Price’. Covered in dirt, crap and barnacles. And we were going to wash it all off. You and me together. 'til I was ‘lustrous’ again. Silly word! The ‘wonder of the world’ you said you knew I really was. You always there for me, Bones. Whenever I needed you. You told me I mattered. I started to believe I was that stupid pearl you were always going on about. And I let you wash me clean.“

“Yea.”

“Got a problem with any of that?”

“No.”

“Then I begged you to prove to me I was clean. This where we start to de-rail, by any chance, Bones?”

“Yea.”

“You’re the picture of sullen intransigence right now, you know that, right?”

“Yea.”

“I'm reminiscing about one of the best things to ever happen to me and you’re acting like it was the end of the world.”

“That’s because you don’t know what the Sam Hill you’re talking about, Jim.”

Jim laughed; that lovely vibrant laugh that always sounded to Bones like Tinkerbell on steroids. It just made him lonelier than ever.

“How about I tell you what I remember and you tell me why I'm wrong then?”

“Okay. Potted version though. No hearts and flowers, Jim.”

“Potted version, sans frills it is then. Okay,... “

He paused to collect his thought for a moment.

“I got .. uh .. needy when we were excising my demons...”

“ _Vulnerable_ , Jim.”

“Okay, semantics, _vulnerable_ then.”

“I started coming on to you...”

“You did.”

“You told me that “erotic transference” was a perfectly normal part of therapy and to be expected, given how deep we’d been going and that you were trying not to let it become ‘counter-transference’ because that would be unethical.”

“Damn straight.”

“And I wouldn’t take no for an answer as I remember it. I set out very deliberately to seduce Leonard McCoy, my Doctor, my therapist and my very best friend.”

“Why?”

“Ooh, sharp question. Okay, honest answer, answered now as then; because you were straight, because you weren’t oversexed – under-sexed if anything. Because you were beautiful. Because I knew you’d never want anything dirty. And because I loved you. I knew that if I could get you to love me back it was my proof I was clean. That the things we were talking about weren’t just platitudes; that they were real. You were my litmus test, Len. You showed me, when you finally caved, that I was clean, that I was worthy, that I could love and be loved....Why are you crying??”

“Because that was your headspace dammit, not mine.”

“What do you mean?”

“This is why we can’t do the Vulcan Hoodoo Happy Ever After thing, Jim. Because sometimes people’s headspaces don’t match up. And sometimes it’s better for people not to know that.”

“Bullshit. And anyway, that’s not our deal right now, Mister. Our deal is Truth and Decide. So let’s have it. Give me your truth. You’ve had mine. Plenty of times. Now give me yours.”

“I did. Twice.”

“Three times as I recall.”

They both grinned the grin of the damned.

“Enough of the entendres, Len. Spill.”


	10. Chapter Ten

Bones reached for his hand and squeezed it.

“Before I start Jim, I got to tell you you’re one of the two most precious things in the universe to me and you were at the time and you are right now and you always will be. And I'm truly sorry, ok? If I could turn back time, I'd be more worthy of ya.”

He paused.

“There’s no nice way to say this so I'll just say it, ok?”

Jim nodded, icy cold all of a sudden. And no longer sure he wanted to ‘go there’. There are memories, moments in life, that define who you are. They were about to tread all over one of his. His heart was racing as Bones began to speak.

“You know before you and Spock got it going on, he and I .. we started getting close. Nothing sexual. Just he noticed when I was hurt on missions and stuff and vice versa and we realised there was .. some attraction. Confused the hell outta me because, well, I'm straight. Don’t laugh. He was the first male of any species I was ever drawn to. Well, he’s so damn lithe.”

Bones chuckled, despite himself.

“Put him in a pair of heels and a long skirt and push a pair of cut oranges up his shirt and .. well, you know what I mean. The man has longer legs than Cyd Charisse and twice the sizzle of Ava Gardner. It’s not right. A man shouldn’t do that to a man just by standing next to him. It was more than I could cope with. He used to come up behind me and just say, ‘Doctor, a word. In Sickbay, if I may.’ And I was there in a heartbeat. And he’d be puttin’ his fingers to my head and sharing his mind with me. And me with him. An’ you know what that’s like...”

Jim nodded and tried to quell the unnecessary jealousy rising inside him.

Bones’ voice dropped to not much above a whisper.

“... and he was head-talking about the future, Jim, and compatible minds, how he hoped even his people would be able to see how illogical it was to expect a person to act against their very nature, about how there was not an atom of his being that was drawn to reproduce with a woman - no matter what age they had been selected for each other at - about how he knew I was but how I was also drawn to him and how he hoped I'd be able to see past his ‘appendage’ and see how compatible our minds were.’

“Well, I was thinking about it. I'd done a lot of thinking about it, truth be told, listening to you talking about your time on Tarsus IV. I'd let him kiss me and that had damn near blown my mind. I was about ready to say, ‘Okay, Spock, let’s do this. I'm all yours if y’all have me, babe,’ when...”

He stopped and his breath hitched.

“...when he comes to me instead and tells me it’s over, that he’s touched your soul with his mind and you’re ‘T’hy’la’ and destined to be his ‘by all that is Vulcan’ and now that it’s been seen it cannot be unseen and he’s very sorry Leonard, but he simply can’t be with me anymore. “Kaiidth”. What is, is. And that’s that. He just turns and walks away.“

“And there’s no time to process a goddamned thing. I'm walking down the corridor to your quarters because I said I'd be with you tonight after your shift’s over and we’re making such good progress Jim and I can’t let you down. And I'm the walking dead. I feel like he’s gutted me and sent me out with all my insides missing. Can’t figure out how I'm walking down the corridor with all my innards torn out and flailing on the floor behind me. Can’t work out why no one can see I’ve been filleted. Dead man walking!”

                      “ _I think we are in rats’ alley  
_                       _Where the dead men lost their bones.”_

“’Am I really clean, Len?’ you asked?

“I remember looking at you. Just looking at you. Your beautiful trusting golden face. Feeling so fucking hollow. Feeling like I'm losing my mind. With this _poetry_ in my head as clear as if someone was speaking it: “

_“What is that noise?”_  
                                      The wind under the door.  
                      “What is that noise now? What is the wind doing?”  
                                      Nothing again nothing.  
                                                               “Do  
                      You know nothing? Do you see nothing? Do you remember  
                      Nothing?”  
                             I remember  
                                        Those are pearls that were his eyes.  
                     “Are you alive, or not? Is there nothing in your head?”  
                                                                           But....  
                     .....so elegant.  
                    So intelligent.  
                    “What shall I do now? What shall I do?”

‘What shall I do now? What shall I do?’

“’Kiss me’ you said. So I did.”

“You asked if you the first man I'd ever kissed. I said, “No.” You seemed disappointed. You asked if there had been lots of men, ‘like you’. I said, “No, just the one.” You asked if we’d done anything else but kiss. I said we’d barely done that. I was monosyllabic. My fist was clenched, I remember that. My fingers were gripping and un-gripping my thumb. You manoeuvred me flat on my back on your bunk somehow and were sitting on top of my hips.”

“You peeled off my medical tunic and threw it to one side. ‘I like you better in black’ you said as you laid your hands on me through my black undershirt. I thought of Spock in his black thermals and of you doing that to him at some future date and I cried out. You took that as an encouragement and were on me like a bitch in heat, Jim.”

“Something burst inside me. I felt it burst. I heard it burst. Something .. base and ugly. ‘Oh gods you’re beautiful, Bones’, you said. ’So pure’. ‘So perfect’. ‘Spend your perfection on me,’ you said. ‘Bone me, Bones. Give me your man-on-man virginity, Bones. Mark me with the _purity_ that is Leonard McCoy.’ That’s what you said“

“I got hold of the last part of that like a life raft; the irony of the rest of it didn’t get me ‘til later. ‘Mark me with .. Leonard McCoy’ I heard. Ok, I'll Mark you. I'll mark you so fucking indelibly that when Spock gets here he’ll smell me, taste me, see me: _know_ I’ve been here first.“

“Oh gods, I'm so sorry, Jim: that wasn’t passion I spent on you, it was rage. And pain, and grief and anguish. And fucking you first, making sure he got my sloppy seconds, it was my revenge on Spock at being unceremoniously dumped for you.”

Stunned silence.

“So, now you know.”

More silence.

“Not only did I break my Hippocratic Oath by allowing myself to fuck you - and by being fucked by you - I did it for the worst possible reasons, rather than the best.”

“Jim, I wasn’t making love to you. I was desecrating you. And I wasn’t thinking about you in the slightest. I was only thinking about Spock and _spoiling_ _you -_ to hurt him.”

.

.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \--
> 
> T.S. Eliot (1888–1965). The Waste Land. 1922.  
> Scene II, A GAME OF CHESS  
> lines 118-132


	11. Chapter Eleven

The silence was palpable. And lingered.

“I'm so sorry...”

Eventually, when it seemed the silence would burst without movement, Jim unzipped the sleeping bags from his side, got out, pulled on a pair of jeans and a jumper and parked himself at the side of the fire, not knowing what to do, feel or say.

No, not true, there were 1100 things he wanted to do, feel and say, all of them at once, all of them utterly contradictory and most of them completely counterproductive.

His arm ached to deliver a crunching right hook to Bones’ cheek. That would release some tension.

He wanted to rouse Spock. Tell him. ‘Come on, Spock, we’re going’. Hate on Bones forever. That wasn’t what he’d agreed to. He was an honourable man. He didn’t care.

He wanted to hug Bones. Tell him it was all right. Tell him he understood. Tell him that everything was going to be all right. That he forgave him. Fuck that!

He needed to rouse Spock, he decided, tell him to mind wipe him now. No, he didn’t want to go back to being best friends with this .. this ...

He wanted to scream.

He wanted to rouse Spock and have him wipe every memory of Leonard H McCoy from his mind. But then none of his life would make any sense, dagnabit! Even his use of words like ‘dagnabit’.

Jim threw up. Collapsed to his knees and threw up some more. Bones was by his side in an instant, rubbing his back and telling him ”everything would be ok” – as he always was. They were welded together, inseparable as di-lithium.

“God, I'm so sorry, Jim.”

Leonard had pulled him into a hug when Jim had stopped puking up the Brandy they’d been drinking and Jim allowed himself to be comforted. Bones kissed his hair sorrowfully as he cradled his broken friend.

“I really am sorry, Jim. You know that, dontchyu?”

Jim nodded and patted Bones arm; his breath still hitched though.

“You starting to see why we can’t all live happily ever after yet? And if the answer is “No” then you’re lyin’, Jim,  and I got to tell you I only just started on the list of reasons Why. And they don’t all involve you. Some involve him too. I'm not a good man and I’ve not lived a straight forward life and it’s not the sort of life I can share with the two of you and have you feel the same about me. And some of it’s “complicated”. He laughed, in that self-deprecating way Jim usually found endearing.

“I'm not seeing much yet, Len. Still processing. At warp 10 and hanging on for the ride. But I am seeing, or trying to, the whole picture. That you were in a bad place – caused by him and circumstance – and that you weren’t acting out of malice. “

“Um, I wouldn’t go that far...”

“...ok, that you weren’t acting with _pre-planned_ malice.”

“I'll give you that!”

“Okay! We’re getting somewhere!”

Bones kissed the top of his head again.

Jim brushed his hand through his hair as if to brush the kiss away.

“Len, I need to  ask you a serious question.”

“Go ahead.”

“The other times when I’ve been with you, there’s not been anything ...” he hesitated, “ _wrong_ ... with those times, has there? Between you and me? I always thought things were .. special?”

“Oh don’t break my heart Jim any more than it has to be broken by all this. The times you’ve come to me for comfort were the only emotionally honest non-barren times I’ve had in this dimensional plane whether you be talking about those on our 5-year voyage or the very few after it. Oases in the desert of my life. “

Jim smiled a 'thank fuck!' smile.

“I love you, Jim. Have done for a long time. And I'm sorry I dishonoured you.”

“Oh, Bones. “

Jim turned to face him and decided to kiss him gently on the lips.

“Seems to me we can get past your first confession, Leonard.”

Bones made to speak but Jim placed his finger on Bones’ lips to shush them.

“Don’t get me wrong. It hurts, Bones, it really does –“ his voice broke and he looked away to gather more resolve.

“Bones, I won’t lie; it strikes at the core of me- and it will take some more talking through - but I'm not seeing anything here that’s inherently unforgivable or insurmountable. I’ve always felt safe in your arms and I won’t let a once-off in the past destroy that and I don’t see that changing anytime soon. You’re a “coming home” place for me. Somewhere I can be “not the Captain”. Somewhere where you are the one in charge, where you’re the adult and I'm free not to be. And I like that, Len. I feel safe and secure in you. And correct me if I'm wrong but I feel a reciprocal need is fulfilled for you with me, that you like taking care of me and I like that you like taking care of me. And I like the fact that you’re just that little bit older than me Len.” He paused.

“.. It added a dimension we both felt secure in exploring together. I need you in different ways to the ways I need Spock. We too have been through so much together. I thought there was no way I could have the two of you. I'm treading on eggshells here but I can’t, I won’t lose that now...” His voice trailed off.

“We’re Family, Jim. “

“Yes.”

 


	12. Chapter Twelve

“Wait, he told you we were ‘T’hy’la’ way back then? But that was practically at the start of the Voyage!” Kirk sat up with a start and wheeled ‘round to fully face his friend, wide eyed.

“Yes, Jim.”

“But.. But..” Kirk was agog.

“I practically threw myself at him for the best part of the next 5 years and got nothing more than a gross intrusion of personal space, games of chess at ridiculously early hours of the morning and coquettish eyes, in return for all my efforts!”

“I even half stripped and threw a towel around my neck and asked if there was anything I could do for him at one point!”

Bones grinned.

“No response eh?”

“Not a blink!”

“He’s a Vulcan, Jim. They don’t do ‘Timeshare’ when it comes to bond-mates. In his eyes you were never available as you were never “single” as you had all your port to port liaisons with Ambassadors or the such. And you had me. It might have all been casual and occasional to you but it was one huge impediment to him. Spock was never interested in casual with you; he was playing for keeps. “

“And you know all this because?”

“...I'm not stupid like some people?”

“Oh.”

“Sorry Jim, but it’s not Rocket Science. Why you couldn’t see it was beyond me. I never saw the incident in reality but I saw it in my mind’s eye many a time, him encountering my smell on you, the morning after. Him stopping in his tracks, wide eyed and nostrils flaring. Wanting to whirl on his heels and demand a “what and a why” from you, implacable Vulcan reserve clamping down on wild emotion before it could be seen by anyone other than those who knew him intimately. Hand clenching at his side then releasing as he defused the impulse to disembowel me for my crime against him. Oh, I’ve seen that countless times in my head. Initially, with relish but infinitely more times in shame and regret. If you’ve ever wondered why he and I snipe at each other; there’s your reason.”

“Oh. .. To this day?”

“It became a habit.”

“I see that.”

“I have a question.”

“Go on.”

“Why’s he out there, meditating, and shut out of this? There’s nothing in what you’ve told me so far that you couldn’t have told him.”

 Oh right, it’s change the subject time is it? Alright, but we’ll need to come back here before we finish.”

“Ok, but I want to talk about Spock for a while. Why’s he shut out like that?”  
Jim gestured to where Spock sat meditating, away from them.

Bones took a deep breath, ran his fingers through his hair, and sighed.

“Because there’s some things he doesn’t know, because there’s some things he doesn’t remember and there’s some things I promised another I'd never let him find out. And, I'm protecting him from each one of them truths. Which one do you want to start with, Jim boy?”

“Let’s take them in order, shall we Bones?”

“Fine. But I'll need more Brandy.”

“I can do better than that, hold on.”

Jim got up and went to his rucksack, returning with an 80 year old bottle of Kentucky Bourbon and two shot glasses.

“Have I told you lately that I love you?”

“What’s not to love?”

“I do love you, Jim.”

“I know Bones, I know.”

Two shot glasses were poured, knocked back and refilled.

“Tell me about what he doesn’t know”

“What, that he raped me?”

“What!”

“Over there, in the Mirror Universe.”

“Holy crap!”

“One minute I'm fixing a burst artery in that thick skull of his and saving his doggon life and the next he’s up, like there’s nothing wrong with him, and he has me by the wrist and he’s walking me backwards to the wall and it’s like I'm mesmerised by the power of him or something and he has his hand at my face and suddenly he’s in my head and it’s not like our Spock, there’s no protecting me from this thing, and suddenly he’s everywhere inside my head, all at once, like this force, everywhere, in everything and I have no barriers, none at all, and he sees it all, everything, all at once, and I let out this cry of longing and love for our Spock and his mouth is on my mouth and his hand lets go my wrist and it’s on my hard cock squeezing and “I will take what I want” is in my mind all of a sudden I'm turned around and bent over the biobed and my trousers are down and he’s in me, Jim.

Oh Gods, the pain. “You will take it and you will like it” is in my head. He still has his hand on my temple. And I find I am taking it and I am liking the pain. Wanting it. Eager for it. And he bites my shoulder like a dog as he comes inside me like fire. And he uses his hand to make sure I complete and he’s just marching me in a daze to the Transporter Room and whispers in my ear before we go in, “Well done, Doctor” and I have to behave like normal in front of everyone and I can hardly walk. Scottie has to guide me to the Transporter Pad I'm in such a daze. It’s all I can do to get back to Sickbay without breaking down.”

“Bones, I had no idea.”

“You weren’t supposed to. What could I say? ‘Hey, Spock just raped me!’ How fucking embarrassing is that for all concerned? I just went back to Sickbay, fixed myself up, filled myself full of happy juice and pain meds and whatdya know, within a quarter of an hour or so I'm on the Bridge telling Spock I preferred him with a beard. How’s that for irony.”

He knocked back the bourbon and proffered his glass for another.

“Please sir, can I have a refill.”

Jim refilled his glass, which was instantly knocked back then proffered again.

“That was what started my predilection for pain I guess.”

“Oh, Bones.”

“It was Spock, Jim. And I did love him. And I did get him. I just had to learn to love what I got.”


	13. Chapter Thirteen

“ I don’t know what to say.”

“What can you say?”

“Not a lot I guess. Why’d you keep it a secret?”

“Why’d you think? 101 reasons. I'm a man. Men aren’t supposed to get raped. Hell, women aren’t either but you get what I mean. It makes me look weak. It’d make people look at me a different way;  I didn’t want people looking at me and the only thing they’d be seeing in their mind’s eye was Spock overpowering me and shafting me against my will. Say what you might but tell people and that’s all they see and think about every time they looked at me for the next few years. I'd cease to exist. I'd just become ‘the rape victim’. I'd seen it happen to others. I didn’t want that for me. I didn’t want to be defined by what had just happened. And I didn’t want to shame Spock.”

“That was ..noble of you, Len.”

“Don’t meaninglessly ennoble me, Jim. We both know full well there was no other way; it’d’ve crippled him inside otherwise. There’s no way he’d have coped with the onslaught of the opposing feelings he’d have been subject to; false guilt, referred shame. ...Jealousy. The contradictions would’ve crippled him. I think they’d do him damage still. Which is why I lay it out there as one of the reasons we still can’t be together and all do the known and fully known, happily ever after thing. Maybe if it were the only thing. But there’s a plateful. And they add up to ‘a problem’. And it’s on the plate.”

“You know him very well.”

“Yes, I do. And maybe you’re right; maybe there’s an element of nobility in this one. But I'm telling ya, it’s the only one I come off well in.”

“More Bourbon please.”

Jim dutifully refilled him.

He realised his own glass was still full and gave it a sip. He remembered the story related by Spock about how his own “alternate self” had apparently tried to ‘come-on’ to him whilst his true self was over in the Mirror Universe and about his having to be restrained by a Vulcan nerve pinch. Suddenly it was not such an amusing anecdote.

“I'm so sorry, Bones. You know our Spock would never...”

The sentence was cut short by short by laughter. Not comfortable laughter.

“The question is, Jim. Where does “Our Spock” begin and end?”

“I mean this Universe, our Dimension, our Spock.”

“I know you do, Jim. But when does he begin and end?”

Jim blinked.

“I'm not sure I follow.”

“Take him back in time 5000 years and is he still ‘our Spock’ or is he something, someone else? _That’s_ the question.”

“Now I know I don’t follow. Wuht??”

“Think Jim. ‘Take him back in time 5000 years and is he still ‘our Spock’ or is he something, someone else?’ That’s the question I'm asking you now.”

Jim was entirely blank, then remembered something; 5000 years.

“Beta Niobe? Sarpeidon? _The Library_? Is that what you’re talking about? When Atoz and the portal transported you and Spock back 5000 years into the Sarpeidon Ice Age? ”

“Yep, that’s what I'm talkin about.”

“What about it?”

“That’s where we’re going next.”

“Why?”

“Because there’s scarcely a word in the mission report submitted by Spock that’s accurate.  That’s why.”

“But why? Spock wouldn’t lie!”

“No, not lie so much as not remember properly once he got back and filled in the gaps with what he’d like to believe and logical assumptions. But there weren’t nothing logical about it.”

Bones smiled a small smile that paused mid smile and transformed into a smirk. and knocked back his bourbon.

“Refill please.”

Jim dutifully refilled the glass.

“I'm warning you, Jim. Finally, after umpteen years, I'm going to crow like an immature school girl with the telling of this one.”

“Do I want to hear it?”

“Um..”

“You’re going to.”

“Go on then.”

“I _had_ Spock before you did, Jim. 5005 years before you did, as a matter of fact! I had him. In his prime, almost 3 years into our voyage, no holds barred, holding nothing back. In an ice cave on Sarpeidon, he was _mine_ _forever_ Jim, just for a few hours, way before he was ever yours. Way before he was ever _yours_. Spock was mine Jim and I _had_ him.”

The ferocity with which he’d spat out those last few words had surprised Bones even more than it had surprised Jim and Bones found himself standing up, kicking dirt  and marching off towards Spock’s meditating figure.  Leaving Jim open mouthed.

“There’s no way this is gonna end well, Spock.” He said, to the meditating figure.

‘Dammit, I love you too much and I’ve done too much for this ever to work out’ was the unspoken thought in his head.

As he was about to turn back to return to Jim - to the fray - he noticed a piece of paper held erect between Spock’s hands. Even in this low light he could see that his name was written on it in large bold lettering.

He gently retrieved it, unfolded the note, and read:

Be Honest, Ashal-Veh.

“Balls... Love you too, Hobgoblin.”

‘That’s us damned then’, he thought to himself, as he made his way back towards Jim.

He passed him the note.

“Seems I have no choice in the matter, Jim. Maybe he does remember. Maybe you two have secrets after all and it’s my job to break them open. So be it.”

Bones nodded towards his empty glass and Jim knocked back his own bourbon before refilling both their glasses.

“Ok, try not to crow too much about it Bones and I'll try not to get too jealous. I think there are some secrets that you need to bring out into the open...”


	14. Chapter Fourteen

“Ok, those seem fair rules.”

They positioned themselves by the side of glowing embers of the fire, face to face, two old friends, about to rake over the coals of the past, Bourbon close at hand and ever refilled, where and when needed.

“You remember we were in the Library and Atoz was being a pain in the butt, enigmatic gadfly about what it was all about, the metal discs, the library and such forth? Wittering on about how we were all “very late” while we were just trying to figure out where the planet’s inhabitants had all gone, seeing as how their sun was about to go Nova in a few hours?”

“Right. Yes.”

“You heard some woman’s scream coming through the archway and were up from your Library chair and off to find out what was going on, on some rescue mission as usual, not realising that was a portal, we followed you, ended up in some other place entirely, all rocks and ice and wind, temperature way below zero, wearing only our Bridge uniforms. And you, nowhere in sight. The rocks were so cold they practically froze our hands the second we touched them. Spock tried to blast a boulder with his phaser to generate some heat but something was preventing it from operating. I couldn’t work out why you weren’t there with us and I called out to you. Do you remember, Jim?”

“Yes, Yes, I do. I was in some strange amalgam of a place where a woman with an Irish accent and this mess of red hair had been trying to pick some swashbuckler’s pocket but it was more of a cross between 17th Century London, The Dark Ages and a touch of the Wild West. It was a very odd place! I heard your voice coming to me through a wall and spoke back at you. We figured out that the Atavachron machine in the library had thrown us back into the past according to the disc we had each been most recently viewing. Then, as I recall, things got a little complicated for me and I had to go.”

“Right. Yea, and we needed to go look for shelter real quick, for as Spock put it, we were in a wilderness of Arctic characteristics - it was bloody cold - and I wasn’t doing too well in it in just my Bridge uniform. You’d think he’d be doin’ worse than me, wouldn’tchya, seeing as he’s in just his Bridge uniform too and he’s from a hot planet but see,  there’s the thing, he’s always cold,  so even on the Bridge he’s wearing thermals under his uniform. Don’t make that much difference to him whether it’s 18 degrees C or -18 degrees C he’s still relatively toasty in his thermals. Me, makes on hell of a difference. And he’s damned near a thousand times stronger and more resilient than I am. “

“So, we’re stumbling through the ice, wind and snow. I'm practically blind as I swear my eyeballs are on the verge of freezing. I’ve lost contact with every extremity I’ve got. I barely know where I'm going anymore and we’ve barely been going 50 yards. I'm a dead man. I'm down. I tell Spock to leave me. He says he won’t. All of a sudden, there’s this pink yeti. It motions for us to follow it. I can’t, I'm done. Spock hoists me like a baby in his arms and carries me and the yetI leads us into a cave and I think I pass out.”

“I remember waking in a cavern lit by oil lamps, on some warm rocks next to a volcanic hot spring, under the weight of the biggest bear skin I ever did see. Spock was leaning over me. “McCoy, Leonard. Wake up, Tal-kam. _Please_.” Holding my hand and being all attentive to me.”

“”Who are _you_?” I said to him, wondering that I should have quite so much of his attention.”

“”Zarabeth,” came a breathy voice from somewhere further down towards my knees. I looked up and the yetI had a head. Wasn’t a very pretty one. A woman in her late 50s it looked to me. Looked like she’d been living like a yetI in a cave for a long time. Half her life, it turned out, from talking to her later. She’d been sentenced to a life in the ice-age as punishment for some crime her family had committed. Some attempted coup or some such. Against a tyrant, she said. Not my place to pass judgement on local politics but seemed a harsh punishment to me. She was handsome enough I guess but she looked like you’d expect for someone in those circumstances. Weathered.”

“ “Where’s Jim?” I'd asked.”

“ “Doctor, you’re in no condition to get up yet. You lie down and rest. It is important to me that you fully recover. Leave the task of finding the Captain to me”.”

“I hadn’t focused on the concern for me shown in the first part, or the softness of his fingers on my neck, taking my pulse, all the signs of attention and concern he was now showing me – I had my eyes shut in every sense of the word, Jim. All I heard was his words of concern for you so I chose to bite his head off about that, as was our way; “Yea, you go look for Jim, Spock. Don’t you worry about me. You just go find Jim”.”

“I passed out again and woke in time to hear Zarabeth tell Spock that we couldn’t return  through the Time-portal at the Atavachron machine in the library had changed our cell structure when transporting us into the past and that Spock coming to realise that we were stuck here in the ice age and Jim was stuck there in the wherever he was. “

“That was the point at which I swear to God I saw Spock smile.”

“He smiled because you were stuck in the past?”  
“Yes!”


	15. Chapter Fifteen

“Bourbon me, Mister; it’s show time.”

“Go on, I'm all ears; no pun intended!”

They chinked glasses and Bones continued:

“ “Have you done anything about locating Jim yet?” I asked. “

“Spock turned to me, from where he’d been talking to Zarabeth. There was something new about him. Something – don’t laugh – manly. Kinda assertive in his demeanour. Subtle but definitely there. An authoritativeness and direct manner replacing his usual ways even in his body language, a transformation confirmed when he spoke:  
“We've been through all that, Doctor. What's the point of rehashing that subject? We can't get back. Wasn't that clear to you?””

“ “Um, okay. Yea, it was clear to me”.”

“ “Then perhaps you are too ill to understand what ‘can’t get back’ means?””

“ “No, I can understand that all right it’s just usually we find our ways around such things, Mr Spock. What’s up? It’s not like you to give up trying?””

“And he walks over to me, all panther-like, plants one hand either side of me and says, straight into my face; “Then I'll repeat it for you. Get this through your head, Leonard. We can't get back. That means we are trapped here in this planet's past, _just as we are_ , and we'll stay here for the rest of our lives, _together_. Now do you understand?””

“And I swear to God, Jim, my pupils are blown wide - I just can’t hide it - because he’s coming on to me like a Tiger in heat. And he knows full well what he’s doing to me beneath my bearskin and holy cow... and all things sacred, he doesn’t half remind me of the mirror man. And I like it, Jim. I like it. “

“But I got to stand up to him, so I say, “Yes, I understand. I never thought I'd hear it, but I understand. You want to stay here. As a matter of fact, you're highly motivated to stay in this forsaken waste...””

“He gets up off me almost with contempt.”

“ “The prospect appeared quite attractive to you a moment ago...””

“ “I called him a pointy eared Vulcan. He pulled me to him, angry, and said he didn’t like that and in fact was not sure he ever did. I asked him what was happening to him. He said nothing that shouldn’t have happened a long time ago and pulled me into a deep long kiss. I was putty in his hands, Jim. I didn’t know what was happening to him but I liked it and we were 5000 years in the past and oh gods whatever he wanted he was going to get. “

“He growled into my ear, “I am a Vulcan, Doctor. We are masters of our Passions. I will master you and you _will_ respect me”.”

“ ”O-kay...””

“He scooped me up like I was nothing and in two strides plonked me down in this warm alcove full of fleeces and furs. I don’t know what happened to Zarabeth, I guess she retreated some place to give us some space. Maybe she watched,” he said with a grin. “But I didn’t get any sense of her being there.”

“Spock peeled off his tunic and thermals in one smooth overhead motion and I swear to God I am straight Jim but that yellowy skin with that black furry chest. I couldn’t have been more turned on if I had Ava Gardner herself before me. I pulled off mine and kicked my trousers off with it, lying there naked before him, with no shame. He’s standing there in his leggings and his boots, his hands high up on the ceiling of the alcove above me, looking down at me. It’s my job to undo him, right? He smiles at me as if to confirm that. “

“I scoot up in front of him, erect now myself, all fingers and thumbs but more anxious to please this God before me than a Vestal Virgin, which I'm now starting to feel like. He has his fingers in my hair and he’s telling me that I'm beautiful to him and that he’s glad he’s now free to tell me how beautiful I am to him. And I have him free and I think that I’ve never seen anything so beautiful – or green – or big in my life and there’s really only one thing to do with it so I take him  so far down my throat he’s saying hello to my tonsils before we’ve a moment to be introduced. And I’ve got my arms around his legs and I'm holding on to him and I'm sucking him deep and all I can think is, “You’re mine! You’re  actually finally _mine_!” And I think he’s about to come and he pulls out of my mouth and croaks out two words at me:”

“ ”In thee!””

“And I turn around and proffer up my arse and spread it wide for him and he takes me whole and there’s that glorious pain again and I'm coming and he’s coming and “Ashaya” and tears and one big glorious mutually sobbing mess on both sides.”

“Fuck me.” Said Jim.

“No shit!” said Bones with a grin.

“Best moment of my goddamned life. No offence.”

“None taken. Been there!”

The two exchanged a toast and another chink of glasses.

“What happened next? Go on...”

 


	16. Chapter Sixteen

“What d’ya think happened next? More of the same! Until we were both spent!”

“That must have taken some time?”

“It did! You’ve seen the teeth marks in my shoulder. I never did use the dermal regenerator on them. Too much affection for them to lose them that way.”

“Those are from Spock? I always thought they were from your pet dog... You said you got them from your pet dog on Shore Leave the last time you took him out before you had to put him to sleep after he got savaged by that bear...”

“No, Spock.”

“I always thought there was something wrong with that story...”

“Sorry, Jim.”

Bones rubbed his shoulder ruefully.

“They’re a part of who I am; like a war wound. I needed a cover story, to keep them.”

“I see that.”

“Spock was far from gentle with me but to be honest the more he roughed me up the more I moaned with delight so he was obeying all my signals. He kept saying he was making me “his” - which was all right by me. Few bruises and stuff to mark the occasion were a small price to pay. Besides, he let me love him back. It wasn’t all one way.”

Jim needed to know, so asked.

“What was that like?”

“Oh God, Jim. Remarkable. To have something like that, so powerful, quiescent under your hand and obeying you. It’s like riding a dragon. Taking him from behind is one thing but putting him on his back and lifting his legs and pushing them up to his chest, making him grasp them and hold them there, exposing his arse to me, whilst I lick it and finger it and blow into it and nibble it and tongue it and finally slide my dick deep into it while I look into his eyes while his nostrils are flaring as he breathes deep as I enter him, now that’s something else.”

“It is, isn’t it.”

“Oh God, yes.”

“So you really had him, then.”

“I did, Jim, yes.”

Bones noticed the tears rolling down Jim’s face, for the first time.

“Oh fuck, Jim, I'm sorry.”

“No, I’ve no right to be jealous. Or blind fucking furious. It was 5005 years ago and on  a planet that doesn’t even exist anymore.”

“Right.”

“But you had him first.”

“Yes.”

“My Spock.”

“Your Spock.”

“Yes. _My_ Spock!”

“He wasn’t _your_ fucking Spock then, Jim. He was _no one’s_ fucking Spock. He was a free agent. Just like you were. Whoring around every port in the Galaxy, every Ambassador’s wife – or the Ambassador themselves if you could turn his or her head. Intergalactic relations, by James T Kirk. How the Federation _fucked_ it’s way to galactic peace. A cunt or an ass in every port. And a kindly Doctor for comfort on board. And a Vulcan, mooning over your every utterance, shadowing your every step, one who’d take a bullet or a spore for you if need be – one who often did. One who worshipped you. One who asked for one thing only from a potential mate, the one thing you were incapable of giving; fidelity. So yea, when circumstance swept you into the realms of the impossible, along with fairytales and unicorns, there was no more talk of T’hy’las. It was Kaiidth; what is, is. And I was there. He was coming to me before he touched your beautiful mind. With you lost to the future, there was no longer any impediment to the future he had once planned with me. Kaiidth. What is, is. And what was, was Leonard H McCoy. And he had me and I had him and it was fucking glorious.”

“So, suck it up, Jim. That’s what’s on the plate if you want to eat at the Party.”

Jim poured himself a stiff drink and knocked it back and poured himself another.

“Tell me the rest of it.”

“You sure?”

“I said ‘tell me’ didn’t I? Don’t hold back.”

Jim nursed his glass, sulkily.

“Zarabeth brought us a tray of drinks and some foodstuffs over, after a while. When the action ceased, I guess. She said not to apologise for our actions as it had been a long time since she had seen love and she had forgotten what such an emotion looked like. She thanked us for reminding her and asked us to have something to eat. I was about to say ‘Spock can’t eat that’ when he picked up a hunk of animal meat and takes a bite right out of it like it’s finest Andorian Melon Delight. I got to admit I stared as I’ve never seen Spock with animal juices running down his chin before or since. He asked what it was and said it was delicious! He said we could rig up a green house of sorts with the help of the hot spring and grow some vegetables to augment the local diet but that the meat was very pleasing to him. Stone me; it was a day of firsts, all right.”

“She says she can’t pretend to be sorry that we’re there with her although she recognises that it’s a misfortune for us, but she’s been so very alone. Spock says he knows what it’s like to be very alone and tells her not to grieve for us; it might be a misfortune for us to be here with her but it is by no means a sorrow.”

“ “Zarabeth” I say. “Tell us some more about precisely why we can’t go back. What do you know about the Atavachron machine?””

“ “Only what you do, really,” she says. “I'm not a technician. When I was sentenced, Zor Kahn selected the disc for the ice age period he wanted to send me back to, the appropriate tools and equipment were gathered to be sent back alongside me, my body was conditioned for the era in the Atavachron booth and myself and the sled of provisions were pushed through the portal. The portal remained open for the short period the disc remained in the machine but because I had been conditioned for the era I would become dust – instantly become 5000 years older – if I tried to go back so whether the portal was open or not was immaterial; I was trapped here”.”

“ “Spock, were we placed in any Atavachron booth?””

“ “No, McCoy, we were not.””

 


	17. Chapter Seventeen

** Chapter 17 **

“ “’You cannot go back! You mustn’t! You will be killed!””

“ “You don’t know that for sure, Zarabeth; you only know _you_ can’t go back! You’d do anything to prevent us going back right now; lie, cheat, say anything to prevent a return to that dreadful life of loneliness you had before we got here!””

“Before I knew what was happening, she’d flung herself on top of me. “

“ “Yes, anything. Anything!””

“Her mouth was on my mouth and her hand was grasping for my groin and there was this almighty roar coming out of Spock’s mouth as he dragged her off of me. He had her by the throat and a look of murderous rage on his face.”

“ “Touch not what is mine,” he growled as he throttled her.”

“ “Spock! What are you doing to her? Are you trying to kill her, Spock?””

“As I was trying to pull her off him it struck me.”

“ “Think, Spock. What are you feeling? Rage? Jealousy? Have you ever had those feelings before?””

“Spock let go and turned to face me, his eyes questioning.”

“ “This is impossible. Impossible. I  am a Vulcan.”“

“ “A Vulcan who couldn’t mind meld with me whilst we were making love. A Vulcan who couldn’t perform the mind bond with his mate. A Vulcan who had to be content to merely call me ‘Adun’a’ instead of initiate the marriage bond.  A Vulcan who couldn’t get it up with the weird Vulcan Whoo Doo that makes you who you are. The Vulcan you knew won't exist for another five thousand years. Think, man. What's happening on your planet right now, this very moment?””

“ “My ancestors are barbarians. Warlike barbarians.””

“ “Who nearly killed themselves off with their own passions. Spock, you're reverting into your ancestors five thousand years before you were born!””

“ “I've lost myself. I do not know who I am... This cannot be! _Can_ we go back?””

“ “I don't know,” said Zarabeth. “I only know that I can't go back”.”

“ “Can _we_ go back? After _this_??””

“ ”No, Spock.” I kissed his hand. “We can’t ‘go back’. We’re together now... But we can go back _there_. At least, we can try. We owe it to the Captain to try,” I said, “Because as much as what you’re offering me here, my life is back there, our lives are back there, and I want that life.”.”

“That’s when I marched out into the storm to try and find the way back.”

“It was freezing out there, but I had to try. I wrapped the furs as tight around me as I could and ran through the blizzard, making my way back as far as I could remember it, to the rock face through which we first appeared. Spock and Zarabeth ran after me.”

“I ran my hands along the paralysingly cold rocks.”

“ “There’s no portal here, Doctor. It’s hopeless!””

“ ”I suppose you’re right, Spock. But I had to try!””

“ “You’re too weak to remain out here any longer, Ashaya; you must give it up!””

“Then I heard your voice, like a miracle, out of the cold air; “Bones! Spock!””

“ It’s Jim! Here we are, Jim!””

“You told us to keep following your voice. We moved a little further along to where it was loudest but still felt only a rock wall.”

“ “This _must_ be it,” said Spock.”

“ “Come on. What are you waiting for?” You said.”

“ “Doctor. I do not wish to part from you.” Spock said. He had a hold of my arm.”

“ “I cannot come. If I go back, I will die,” said Zarabeth.”

“ “Come on, Spock! Now!” I said, not heeding what he was saying.”

“Spock pushes me away. I fall against the rock face. I tell you that something is wrong and that we cannot get through the portal. You say that it’s because we went through it together so we’ve got to come back through it together.”

 “Spock turns to me and takes my face in his hands. “I do not wish to depart from you. I fear...””

“ “Come on, hurry!” comes your voice.”

“ “How much time do we have, Captain?” he asks.”

“ “There’s no more time, Spock. We must go now.””

“He kisses me soft and holds me close, then releases. We look around to see Zarabeth walking away.”

“ “Spock, McCoy, hurry through the portal. Time is running out.”

“There is no more time and we walk through the portal together.”

“Everything is different in an instant. Even the bearskins didn’t make it back. Atoz pushes us apart and tears through the portal to his own salvation. Spock’s hands go behind his back as he becomes his self again. He straightens up. You walk over to us. I'm .. I dunno .. holding my breath waiting to see if I still have a life or not .. watching Spock, holding my breath, praying inside. ‘Don’t go.’ You come up and put your hands on both our shoulders. I try not to flinch; you’re on my wound in every sense. You say something about Atoz. I have no idea what it is. You contact the ship.”

“Spock speaks.”

“I die, again.”

“What did he say?”

“ “There's no further need to observe me, Doctor. As you can see, I've returned to the present in every sense.””

“Ouch.”

“Yea.”

“Nothing else?”

“I did challenge him.”

“What did you say?”

“ “But it did happen, Spock.””

“What did he say?”

“You know his penchant for old Earth literature. He quoted Kit Marlow at me. The Jew of Malta.”

Jim raised a quizzical eyebrow.

“ “...Thou hast committed   
Fornication: but that was in another country,  
And besides, the wench is dead." “

“He said that??”

“Close as dammit.”

“What did he say?”

“ “Yes, it happened. But that was five thousand years ago. And she is dead now. Dead and buried. Long ago.””

“Yes, that is ‘close as dammit’, dammit. I'm sorry, that must have been ... harsh.”

“Ya think?”

Now it was Bones’ turn to cry.

And Jim comforted him.

 


	18. Chapter Eighteen

“Bones, I'm starting to realise that our relationship, the three of us, is a lot more complicated than I thought.”

Bones snivelled in Jim’s arms.

“I had no idea that there was so much _History_ between you and Spock.”

“I thought the sniping between the two of you was sexual tension, or play, or affection; not _animus_...”

“It is, Jim, it is. At least it is now. There was a fair bit of animus from me on the voyage though, I'm telling ya. He broke my heart. Twice. I'm not sure what it was from him. Cold hearted amusement with a hint of annoyance and maybe a gram of affection, if I give him an inch? It’s honestly hard for me to think back to the Spock of the voyage without hurt rising to the surface, even now. We get on a lot better since he died.”

Jim laughed.

“No seriously, there’s nothing like carrying someone’s Katra around in your head for getting to know them better. I understand him a lot more now. I understand his emotions a lot more now.”

Jim smiled.

“His emotions, eh?”

“Yea, Jim.”

“That’s good.”

“Yea. Helped me drop the Hate from the Love/Hate in our relationship.”

“I can see how that could be useful.”

“No shit!”

“You really love him, don’t you.”

“I do. Just as you do, Jim.”

“Yes.”

Jim paused.

“You know he loves you back, right?”

“I do.”

“Then I repeat, what’s the problem? I mean, with this one, he and I are going to have words about some secrets he might have been keeping from me ...”

“No, Jim!”

“No?”

“No. It’s my firm belief he doesn’t remember properly...”

“That doesn’t tie up with his statement to you when you came back through the Portal, Leonard; “That was in another country and besides the wench is dead”.”

“No, but couldn’t it have settled down that way in his mind somehow, by the time he got back to the ship and made his report? His mind reverting back from its pre-Reform state to its normal state, losing the details of what had happened?”

“I think you’re giving him too much benefit of the doubt, there, and wanting him to have forgotten because it’s easier on you if he’s forgotten it. No, you said he changed back in an instant. I don’t believe for one second he forgot and I think the note confirms that.”

“Ah, the note, yes. Damn.”

“No, he and I have some words to have about ‘secrets’ – secrets that I didn’t think it was possible for us to have – but in terms of how it affects things between you and me? This isn’t an impediment to our going forward, Len. As you said, he was a free agent at the time. You were a free agent. I was a free agent. You were also stuck 5000 years back in time...”

“ So I got irrationally jealous for a moment. So what. So you crowed like a schoolgirl about who had who first. So what, and good luck to you.”

“I'm jealous of the event; I won’t deny it. But I won’t begrudge it to you or wish it away – apart from the fact that it caused you so much pain in the aftermath. I'm glad you had your time with him. I wish it had been longer and I wish it hadn’t ended so cruelly or abruptly, Len.”

“What are you? Some kind of Forgiveness God??”

Jim laughed.

“Just a man hopelessly in love with two men; warts and all.”

“Trouble is, Jim, I'm not setting this one up there as one of ‘the problems’. This one is only up there as context to try to explain some of my headspace for something I did at the end of our Voyage. When I get there, will you try to bear that in mind, Jim? And try to remember in advance that I'm sorry?”

“Gods, Bones, you’re filling me with trepidation now. Is that where we’re going next?”

“No, Jim. I'm saving that ‘til last. Trying to keep some semblance of continuity here. Besides, it’s just the icing on the cake, the point at which you’ll explode and never speak to me again. I need to explain to you why I can’t let Spock inside my head now.”

“Yes, why is that, Bones?”

“In one word?”

“Uha.”

“Sarek.”

 


	19. Chapter Nineteen

"Sarek?? What's he got to do with this, Bones?"

"It was Sarek who taught me how to build these privacy boxes in my mind for storing things away in."

Jim blinked

"He did??"

"Uha."

"What, when, why and how??"

"When he and the Lady Amanda were on the Enterprise when we were carrying the delegates to the Babel Conference. It was only a few weeks after my encounter with Spock's counterpart in the Mirror Universe and to say I was still all shaken up by that is to state the crazily obvious. Except I was doing my best to make sure it was obvious to no one; I was winning Oscars, or so I thought."

"You were. Go on."

"Sarek came to see me in Sickbay within an hour or so of coming on board and asked to speak to me "on a personal matter". Assuming it was something to do with his health I cleared sickbay to give the man his privacy and found myself getting asked how come he could smell his son upon me but could not smell me upon his son. Most perplexing. And he "must have my mind". Next thing I know his hand is on my face and I'm submitting to this glorious mind, willingly in every way. I'm letting him in everywhere, showing him everything. It feels like such a relief. Feels like he's applying healing balm to the inside of my skull and I know I'd do anything for him. Anything, Jim. He removes his hand. He says that he understands emotions through his bond with the Lady Amanda and that although he does not feel them - I swear he does one of those Spock non-smiles at the word "feel" - he recognises enough of them to say he regrets that my interactions with his son have not been more ... beneficial ... to myself and that I do indeed have a very compatible mind and that he would like to explore it some more. He says he will teach me some techniques to hide it - what happened in the Mirror Universe, I think, he's referring to - from his son. This seems good to me and I hear myself saying I'd be very grateful for that. He says we will meet later at a time of his convenience, and he's gone. And I feel ... better ... for the first time in as long as I can remember."

"If you're going to tell me you got it on with Sarek, I really need another drink..."

McCoy laughed.

"Jeez, that'd be something, wouldn't it?" he said, dryly.

"Ha!"

Jim kicked some leaves.

"I really don't think I'd better answer that!" he said, with a grin. "It was easy to see what both he and Amanda saw in each other."

Bones let out a deep exhale.

"You're not wrong there."

Jim caught something in Bones' tone and looked up at him quizzically.

"Ah fuck it."

'Here it comes...' he thought.

"Sarek's a ...Comparative Xeno-biological voyeur, Jim.  That's probably the best way to put it. We didn't 'go there' straight away but we had 'compatible minds'. I became "mind buddies" with him. I let him explore my mind, fully. No holds barred. Go where I've been. See what I've seen. Sorry, but if I've done it with you then Sarek's relived it innumerable times - no doubt in exquisite detail - as it was  etched into his indelible memory by yours truly during a mind meld. Similarly everything I ever did with every Andorian whore. And more. And my wife."

"And Spock?!"

"Uh, yeah. And Spock."

"Holy crap. Now I know why he looked at me like that."

"Ha! Sorry, yea. Probably"

"Fuck. And what did you get out of this?"

"Well, more of that wonderful mind-healing, for one. Seems I had a mild case of a  broken Vulcan mind-bond or something and had been going slowly nuts because of it. And I got Vulcan Hoo-Doo for that. And felt miles better. But I also got me some valuable Xeno-biological insights. A lot of people have wondered how Vulcans treat their women, right? Well, I got to see firsthand. You see, it was a reciprocal arrangement. I showed him mine. He showed me his. I got to experience what it was like to be a Vulcan and to mate."

"Holy crap."

"Uha"

"Did you do Pon Farr??"

"Uha"

"You've experienced Sarek's Pon Farr??"

"Uha."

"Who with?"

"Both his wives. And a surrogate that time he..."

"Amanda?!"

"Uha."

"I've seen a lot of Amanda."

"..."

"And I have it all shut away in boxes Sarek taught me how to construct. Places Spock would never find them."

"..."

"You starting to see my problem yet, Jim?"

"Yea. You've seen way too much of his Mother."

"You got it."

****


	20. Chapter Twenty

Jim stared at him, open mouthed awhile, then remembered to shut it.

"I'm sorry but I'm having trouble processing this one."

McCoy shrugged.

"Where d'you want me to begin with the clarifying, Jim?"

Jim ran his fingers through his hair, not sure himself.

"Broken bond. Spock never bonded with you!?"

"Not the one in this Universe didn't. Not our Spock. But the other one did. The one in the Mirrorverse. When he raped me. Seems they have a funny way of expressing love, or something. Maybe he didn't know he was doing it but when he took me like he did on that biobed and told me he wanted me to feel it, he linked our minds. And when we came back through the transporters to our world, it severed the bond. Seems it weren't a full marriage bond but it was enough of a bond to do some shredding to an untrained mind when it were severed. Sarek took hold of the frayed ends of my psyche and put 'em back together again and for that, well, I'm forever grateful."

McCoy smiled.

"I remember, he said it was the least he could do, "given the circumstances"."

"You think kindly of Sarek?"

"Apart from the two of you the man is the closest thing I have to a friend. Although I suspect I'm more of a house bunny to him than a friend. He's been there for me when no one else has. You've noticed I spend a lot of my vacations on Vulcan and did even during the voyage?"

"Yes. I thought you were acting as personal physician to the Lady Amanda and pursuing your interests in Vulcan Xeno-Biology?"

"I was," said Bones with a raise of his eyebrows.

"I begin to understand..." said Kirk, and again remembered to close his mouth.

"No, no, I don't understand... Why would Sarek show you something so intimate as his making ... love to his wife? He's a private man, a reserved and dignified man, dammit, not an exhibitionist!"

"The thing you got to understand about Sarek, Jim, is beneath that exterior, he's ... " (he searched for just the right word and couldn't find it.) "... playful? What I mean is he's a game player and he's full of the devil and mischief. And he's also a master strategist. And he also plays hard and plays to win but we'll come on to that. Don't ever think of playing him at chess."

He gave Jim a pointed look.

"Makes Spock look like a talentless child playing chequers..."

"Okay..."

"Uha. Bear that in mind; that's what I was up against."

"Okay. Bearing that in mind. Go on."

"And for the record, he does love Spock. Unconditionally. He just believes that beating him with a stick will make him stronger than hugging him will. "

Jim gave Bones The Look.

"Yea, I know. I've done some work on that," he grinned.

"Oh so it's you we've got to thank for "the thaw"?"

"I like to think so, in some part at least, yeah."

"Kudos, Bones."

The words felt like a kiss from Jim's lips.

"Thanks. Seemed the least I could do, considering. It was one of the first things I asked of him, actually; to stop baiting Spock."

"Oh?"

"Yea. We were in Sickbay, all 3 of us. I had Sarek in one biobed, Spock in another. Spock was sleeping off the effects of that tricky T-negative blood transfusion he'd given his father. Sarek had beckoned me over to his own biobed for another mind lesson. We'd had a few before his heart defect had got the better of him and I had to step in and operate but they had always been in private; I was surprised that he'd want to continue them in the Sickbay in front of Spock but Sarek was the one who was in charge. And Spock was asleep, Sarek said. So we mind-melded and went through the exercises for the constructions of mind-boxes again. Sarek was very pleased with me. Said I had a very able and compliant mind, to the extent that he was surprised to find such a mind in a human. He said I would make a good vulcan. He said I had the discipline. Unlike some."

"When he released the mind-meld, Spock was sitting up in his biobed, staring at us."

""Have I not taught you that it is rude to stare, Spock? I have merely been helping Leonard with some disciplines of the mind. Some disciplines I might add that it took you years to master. It has taken him less than a few hours. It was very careless of you to let such an able mind escape. Once again, I am cleaning up the mess you have made. You may go now, Dr McCoy. We will speak again, later.""

"Considering myself dismissed, I didn't have any real choice but to turn and leave the room. But you could cut the atmosphere with a knife. It was two whole weeks after that before Spock said a word to me outside the course of the cause of duty. I told Sarek it wasn't on, next time he was inside my head, baiting Spock like that. He seemed surprised. I'm not sure he's used to people telling him what to do. His response was to 'say' he wanted to test my ability to make effective use of what he had taught me ... and the next thing, my head is full of this memory of his, only it's as vivid as if I'm living it, except in super fast motion like a data download ... it's simply Amanda, 25 years ago, sitting across from him at a restaurant, eating. And he's captivated by her, Jim. And sporting the most enormous hard-on, under the table. And he spends the entire dinner poised on the edge of coming and just wills it away when the time comes to say goodbye. And the man maintains absolute composure throughout. And she has no idea. And he shares this with me and I'm feeling everything he felt and .. uh .. sporting the same physiological reaction and in walks Amanda. I blink. Box. Now. No erection. Not a flicker on my face. And a look of satisfaction on Sarek's. "

""The good Doctor is progressing well in his Vulcan studies, my dear. I would like to invite him to stay with us the next time he is in the vicinity of Vulcan. Would you mind?""

""Oh no, dear. I'd like that very much. Yes, do come and stay with us, Dr McCoy. Another human face on Vulcan will be such a joy.""

"And so, it began. Dr McCoy, tame house bunny to Sarek and his whims."

 


	21. Chapter Twenty One

"I still don't get it. Okay, you say he's got the devil in him and maybe I can see that. But to share images of Amanda with you; that's a gross invasion of her privacy, Bones!"

"You're not wrong. And I'm explaining it all wrong. I'm making it sound like it happened all at once. It didn't. Not for years. Not the Amanda visions. They were the ace up his sleeve. Like I said, he plays a mean game of chess. Mean game of Poker, too. Slowly, builds a hand over years, then, wham. You don't stand a chance."

"I'm not with you."

"Amanda. She was his Ace in the hole."

"How'd you mean?"

"He didn't share those with me 'til after the V-Ger incident. When you and Spock finally got it on. He approved, you see. He always said minds had a flavour. He said I was peppermint."

"Cool and good to suck on?" asked Jim, with a grin.

"Don't go there." Bones grinned back. "There's never been anything physical between Sarek and me."

Jim filed that and determined to go back there.

"Peppermint, you were saying...?"

"Oh. Yeah. Spock, apparently is 'Plomeck soup with too much pepper' - make of that what you will."

Jim made a lot of it.

"You apparently ... get this ... you, when I asked him about you ... he said you were "Manuka honey for Spock's soul." I asked him if he meant his Katra. I was trying to be sassy. He said he'd chosen his words carefully."

"Wow."

"Yeah. Be flattered. Like I said, he approved. So did Amanda. And neither of them wanted me queering the cake. Because, hell, I'd been getting in the way of the two of you before there was a two of you - and in ways I still ain't told you about Jim boy so don't go protesting about things you know nothing about yet. "

"Amanda knew all about my memory swaps with her husband. Fact of the matter is she offered to give us some space the second evening I first stayed with them so we could "get down to some dirty little memory swaps". I darned near choked on my wine when she said it," he said with a laugh, remembering.

He continued, ""It's okay, Leonard, I'm well aware my husband is quite the voyeur. We have an arrangement, he and I; it's one of absolute bodily fidelity. What he sees through his mind doesn't bother me and as long as he doesn't show anything of me .. without my permission" - she said that with a wink  - is perfectly okay by me." And with that, she left us 'gentlemen' to our 'machinations'. And Sarek to explain just what he had in mind, purely in the interests of comparative Xeno-Biology, of course."

Jim blinked. "Sassy"

"Sassy. Classy. A real Lady in every respect. It was easy to see what those two saw in each other."

Again, that point Jim determined to come back to.

Jim did some math and didn't much like the answer.

"You were kinda inexperienced, Len, around the time of the Coridan conference - no offence. I mean, that was one of the things that drew me to you - why I thought you making love to me was a valid litmus test that I was clean. Okay, you'd been married, but wasn't she just the 3rd person you'd been with?"

"Yep. But don't forget, the first was Emony Dax!"

"Ah, the joined Trill."

"Taught me everything I know."

"Taught you very well, as I remember."

They both grinned.

"Come sit next to me, by what's left of the fire."

They both sat, knees up, by the remnants of the fire, and Jim drew a blanket up around their shoulders.

"Thanks, Jim."

Jim kissed him on the shoulder.

"Even so, Len. You didn't have that much to share with Sarek? Not compared to someone..."

"Someone like you, you mean?"

"Well, now you come to mention it. And I don't necessarily put that forward as a good thing. As you know..."

Bones smiled.

"Male ego's a thing, ain't it?"

"Sure is, Bones. Always up for a pissing contest, even in the driving rain."

"Well, you're right, of course. I ran out of things to share real quick."

Bones shrugged.

"So I had to go out and get me some things to share, didn't I."

"Oh, Bones..."

"What can I say? I wanted to please him. So I just went out and got myself into a load of circumstances my head and heart weren't into just so I could take 'em back to him. Just so I could please him and yes get to experience some more of that head rush of what it's like to feel like you're a Vulcan in return."

Jim mulled it over awhile.

"So what you're essentially saying is, Sarek became a cause of degradation and a drug of addiction to you."

It was Bones' turn to blink.

"I guess you might put it like that, yes."

"He was also the only person in my life giving me any safe affection. Although, as I said, I'm sure I was no more than a pet rabbit to the man."

 

 


	22. Chapter Twenty Two

"So tell me about how he came to share images of Amanda with you."

"Cut to the chase, eh?"

"I figured it's about time we did."

"I'm agog."

"I sowed the seeds of my own destruction. You might as well hear how I got out-played. Two more consummate game players I ain't never met, Jim."

He put his hand on Bones' knee.

"Tell me what happened?"

"It's my first leave on Vulcan after the V-Ger incident. You and Spock are working it out. Amanda, she's just over the moon about that. Sarek seems pleased in his Sarek sort of way that his son is 'happy' and in touch with his feelings now. Although he don't put it quite like that. Something about succumbing to the logic of accepting the fact that he is not 100% Vulcan.  And makes a quip about even the purest bred Vulcans rarely being able to achieve 100% logic. We all have things that drive us. Speaking of which, Amanda has something she would like to share with me. Yes, says Amanda, we've known you so long now you're practically part of the family and my friendship has been a great solace to both her and Sarak and she has been grateful for the distraction I have provided Sarek from his more onerous duties ... a little frivolity is good for him now and then. She is very proud of what she and her husband have, and of what they have achieved together. She knows I am not a lech, that I would perceive the beauty in what was shown me not merely "get off on it" ... she said I would 'understand' ... in view of how I felt about her son ... (I blinked at that and all my questioning ability went out of the window; I became supplicant and compliant to their wishes) ... she had given Sarek permission to share 'certain occasions' with me. Certain occasions involving her. "

"I remember stammering something, asking her if she was sure. Utterly, she said. And she smiled with a smile that lit up the room and said now she must leave us to our exchanges and if we would excuse her, and she made her exit. And Sarek sat down in front of me as we had done a dozen times or more before. Fingers on my temple. "Your mind to my mind." And, oh Jim. The majesty of it. I can't say more. The intensity. I never knew it could be like that between a man and a woman. My jaw fell. And she was right; it was beyond lechery. Beyond the normal reactions of my dick to stimulating images. It was like inhabiting a Vermeer. Being Wagnerian. Being a God. My God... I cried out!"

"He shared so much, Jim. I sensed his delight in my overawedness. I was a slack jawed yokel, staring at greatness beyond my comprehension, knowing I was nothing."

"When it was over, I asked him why he was interested in anything I had been able to show him. He just said, "Comparative Xeno-Biology". I nodded. It was me that was the voyeur, not him and now he was taking the driest of delight in pointing that out to me.."

"Wow."

"Don't play him at Chess, Jim. I haven't finished yet."

"Go on."

"Later that same evening, Sarek and I are enjoying drinks by the fire when the Lady Amanda comes in and asks if she might join us. Of course she may. I say I have no words sufficient enough to thank her for the great honour she did me in allowing Sarek to share what he did. That I am in awe and salute the extreme beauty that the two of them bring to the Universe. She thanks me, and takes a sip of her drink, and says that she considers herself a very fortunate woman, and flashes Sarek a winning smile which he pretends not to return. She then looks at me and said she did not do what she did lightly but that she is very hopeful her son will soon bring a similar light into the world. That she understands what he has with his Captain, with James T Kirk..."

"That'd be you," he said, squeezing Jim's knee.

Jim smiled at him.

"... to be a T'hy'la relationship, a rare and wonderous thing, and that she'd hate anyone or anything to get in the way of it, as they had done in the past."

 "Um, don't worry, Ma'am. My days of getting in the way of that are done, I said. I know when I'm beat. "

"You'd better do, she said. Because those carefully erected walls in your head won't withstand a bond with a Vulcan. Everything will come flooding out. Not one thing will remain hidden."

"I think my heart stopped when she said that. I had sudden visions of Spock seeing what I'd just seen, in my mind! Of this sudden darkening of his face .. of rage. humiliation, fury, shame, homicidal intent, a whole gamut of insurmountability that could never be got past, ever again."

"I looked at her. And I looked at him. The both of them looking at me. Everyone aware I could add 2 to 2 - they had chosen to share with me so that I would never be able to be with Spock - and wondering how I would react."

"Now I'd like to say I reacted with class and just kinda shrugged and said, "y'all shouldnt'a gone to so much bother; it weren't necessary now" but I made a bit of a scene. Said something 'bout pointy-eared untrustable betrayers of friendship, must run in the family, or something, and stormed out of the room to my bedroom and was found there throwing my belongings in a case by Amanda not 3 minutes later."

"You must understand Leonard, she said. We want only the best for all 3 of you. And we don't think that involves you being with Spock."

"Alright, I get that, I says. But did you have to be so damned underhand about it? Did you have to prime me like some goddamned love grenade that'll go off in his face if I get to near again?"

"Frankly, yes. she said. "

"Nothing if not logical"

"Shut up, Jim."

"I just ended up crying at that point and I let her Mother me some. Made all sorts of pathetic noises 'bout how I thought she and Sarek were my friends, bout how I didn't have many friends, bout how it were difficult for me to let people in close because when I did ... *this* sort of shit happened."

"What she say?"

"Well I got to say she's a great "Mom". Told me she was sorry they'd felt they'd had to act like that, that they were my friends and that they hoped I'd let them try and make it up to me that they valued me as a friend and that they honestly believed this was for my good as well as everyone else's and would I like some tea and cake?"

Jim laughed. "Yea, she's a great Mom. Can you imagine her with a sulky Spock?"

"Only too well!"

They both laughed.

Then they both stopped laughing.

"But seriously," said Jim. "That's some grenade you've got in your head."

"Ain't it just? They knew what they were doing."

"No they didn't. They didn't realise we have a three-way soul."

"You starting to see we're fucked, yet?"

 


	23. Chapter Twenty Three

Jim echoed the question, "Am I starting to see that we're fucked yet?" And let out a sigh of derision.

"Frankly, Bones, I'm starting to get an idea of that, although it might not be in the way that you think..."

It was McCoy's turn to blink.

"Now what in the Sam Hill do you mean by that?" he said with a start.

Jim shook his head.

"Thoughts half-formed, Len. I'll come back to them."

McCoy knew he didn't like the sound of that.

"Okay...."

"Go on with telling me about you and Sarek."

McCoy shrugged.

"Not much left to tell, I guess. I felt betrayed by him. Hell, I was betrayed by him. So I did the only thing I could do; I dried up the well for him. No more Xeno-Biological titbits for him. My own well was long since run dry and I sure as hell weren't going out to add more to the tale for him no more. He still liked to share my mind - peppermint, remember - but the old days were over. It were philosophy and Vulcan mores he taught me from now on - and just general 'being in my headspace'."

"You still go to see him?"

"Not as often as I did. Mostly when he 'invites' me. You don't tend to turn down an invitation from Sarek of Vulcan," he said with a wry smile.

"Man has a way of getting what he wants."

"Do you like him?"

"Now ain't that a question out of Left-field!" he said, looking at Jim askance.

"Yes, do you like him."

McCoy narrowed his eyes and asked sharply, "In what way?"

"Any way you care to answer the question, Len."

Len sucked on his teeth a moment.

"I don't trust him. I'd never trust him."

He paused.

"No, that ain't true. I'd always trust him to do what he thought was the best thing. Come what may. Problem is, what he thinks is the best thing ain't necessarily what you think is the best thing or necessarily what you've agreed - or think you've agreed- upon. And he's always at least 7 moves ahead of you. So you're totally out fucking manoeuvred at every turn. You haven't a hope - don't even try. Just submit to the greater will. "

"What flavour is he, Len?"

"Ketchup. Makes everything taste better."

"Do you love him?"

"Now what kinda Sam Hill question is that one??"

Bones stared at him incredulously.

"Do you love him?"

"There's never been anything physical between me and Sarek, Jim!"

"That's not what I asked; do you love him?"

Bones remembered to shut his mouth. Then exhaled.

"Boy, you know how to take a man by surprise with a question."

"Well?" asked Jim, with a grin.

Bones scratched behind his ear.

"It's not something I've ever thought about, Jim!"

"And you're not comfortable thinking about it now."

"No, I'm not!"

"Why not?"

"Because ... because he's Sarek of Vulcan, for Chrissakes. And he's Spock's Father!"

"Exactly."

"Houston, we have a problem."

"Exactly."

"Fuck."

"Uha."

"He helped me, Jim. Not just when Spock raped me. There's things about me you don't know. I'm not a good man. I've not always done good things. I've not even been true to the morals of my profession, for chrissakes. I don't mean what we were talking about earlier, me taking advantage of you. I mean ... stuff right at the heart of me. Something I did that I shouldn't have. Something that defines me like Tarsus IV defines you, Jim. He helped me deal with something like that. Something that had been eating away at me for years and destroying me from the inside out. Something you know nothing about..."

Jim drew his friend closer under the blanket and held him tight against him, protectively.

"You don't have to tell me unless you want to," he said, kissing his head.

"Might as well. It's all going to get brain-wiped and confession is good for the soul, right?"

"Right."

"I could do with another drink though, Jim. If we're going to go there."

Jim scooted out from under the blanket and returned momentarily with two beakers and a bottle of Jim Beam.

"Have you got an inexhaustible supply out there somewhere?"

"Something like that," said, Jim with a grin, proffering his friend a half full beaker before snuggling down next to him again and drawing the blanket around their shoulders.

He too took a sip.

"Good stuff. You know I love you, Len?"

"I know. Love you too, Jim."

They clunked beakers.

"Go on with what you were telling me."

"What, with my confessions of the damned? Okay."

Bones let out a long sigh.

"First do no harm, right?"

"Uha."

"First and most important rule of a Physician. It's what distinguishes us from Sawbones and Veterinarians. "

There was the longest of pauses and Jim all but held his breath waiting for his friend to find the courage to continue.

Bones sniffed.

"David Andrew McCoy. My Dad. Physician, like me. Reason I'm a physician. Reason I'm many things. Good man. Honest. Upright. Loved him with every bone of my body. Fit and healthy all his life. Til 2264, couple of years before we met. Dad was 81 - still wry and robust - when he contracted pyrrhoneuritis, a rare disease imported from the colony worlds. It's a death sentence. Nasty little disease. Within 3 months he'd lost a third or his body weight and was crippled, bedridden and racked with pain. The painkillers I was giving him weren't touching it due to the nature of the damage to the nerves that was occurring. Dad was on life-support and begging me to just turn it off and put him out of his misery. I'd do it for a dog, he said to me. Why wouldn't I do it for him. Because I'm a Physician, Dad. Not a Veterinarian. Hang on, I asked him to. Just hang on. There are good people working on a cure for this right now. "

Bones took a stiff drink from his beaker. Jim continued to listen.

"But the pain, Len, the pain. I can't take it."

"Every time I spoke to him, Jim, it was just the same litany, 'End me, Len, please end me. For the love of God, end me. If you love me, you'll end me.'"

"It wore me down. Eventually, I succumbed. I reduced myself to the level of Veterinarian and put him to sleep. Just turned off his machines. He thanked me as I did it. A few weeks later they discovered the cure."

"Oh, Len."

"I know. It's ok, you don't need to talk me through it. Sarek..."

He smiled ruefully.

"He lanced the abscess. Boy, Jim, there was a lot of pus, I'm telling you. You can't imagine..."

Jim snorted.

"You probably can..."

"And Sarek helped you deal with all that?"

"Yep."

"Good man."

"Yep."

"So, do you love him?"

Bones laughed. Then smiled.

"I guess, having given you the warning about how “erotic transference” is a perfectly normal part of therapy and is to be expected in cases like ours i shouldn't be surprised to find you asking if it's occurred between me and Sarek."

"Quite right, you shouldn't. And that still doesn't answer my question."

"Do I love him..."

Bones thought seriously.

"It strikes me, Jim, that for love to be Love .. it has to be reciprocal or at least have some hint of reciprocity. I have never had a hint of reciprocity off of Sarek. Mischief, yes. Devilment, yes."

He sniffed.

"Lust, yes, a hint..."

Jim noted that Bones was taking some deep breaths...

Bones shook his head.

"...But Love? No. I've had no hint of Love. And I won't take anything less. And he won't give anything less; he's married and gives full bodily fidelity to the Lady Amanda, whom he does Love. So it seems to me there's not even room in the Universe for conjecture. Kaiidth, he would say. I'm peppermint and he's an immovable object."

 


	24. Chapter Twenty Four

"Would I do him if it was offered? Hell, yes! In a heartbeat. In my fantasies. Real life, it ain't going to happen. Is it Love? I can answer that by lifting it up and comparing it to what I feel for you and Spock if it helps?"

"Yes, do that."

"It's not the same colour, it's not the same texture and it's not the same shape. It's a small little glow worm next to a lantern the size of a supernova giving off the heat of 10 suns."

"Why Len, you're quite a poet!"

"It's the truth. If you and Spock weren't in the Universe I'd probably pay it notice but you two? You drown out such ... insignificance." He spat out the word.

Jim let out a long exhale of breath.

Bones gave him a long look, as he swirled his drink around his beaker before swallowing it.

"Why'd you ask."

Jim looked up and looked Bones in the face.

"Because I'm wondering how Spock will feel about the fact that you're sexually attracted to his father."

Bones went still for a moment.

"Fuck."

"Uha."

"I've been so caught up on the fact that I've images of his Mam spread in flagrante in my head I didn't stop to think about that one. I mean, I stopped to think about how he'd feel about our .. uh .. swapping comparative xeno-biological memories but once I got to the blind rage that some of those involved you ... my thought processes didn't see much point in going past the apocalypse..."

Jim poured himself another drink as Bones carried on musing.

"So I'm triply fucked here..."

"Question."

"Go on."

"Spock's talking about the possibility of removing the memory of tonight from my mind - if  I decide there's no way forward for us - as a way of resolving this, right?"

"Uha."

"Is there any way we can get some Vulcan Mind Healer to remove the memories of Spock's Mother from your mind? Or even better, the whole comparable Xeno-Biology swap-fest thing completely? "

"I don't know. Spock would be the person to ask. But we can't ask him, now can we!"

"Not so much, no."

"But it's something to bear in mind? There might be a way out here on this one?"

"It's a thought!"

"Yeah." McCoy actually sounded hopeful.

"But it wouldn't change how you feel about Sarek."

"You think Spock could handle that?"

Jim thought for a moment.

"Honestly, I don't know."

The longest sigh from McCoy who then drained his beaker.

"I'm a damned man."

"Mmm?"

"Foolish allowing myself a moment's worth of hope there for a second. I forgot there's no way out of this for me. Dead man walking. Or drinking, rather. I got the biggest of all insurmountable problems to get round yet. "

"Mmm? What's that?"

"You, Jim. You're my biggest problem, tonight. Because there's no way you're up for forgiving me for what I've saved for last. The biggest doozy yet. Forgive me, but I'm feeling the need for some clothes..."

He stood up, keeping the blanket wrapped around his shoulders, leaving Jim hunched naked by the remnants of the fire, and marched over to where their clothes were strewn and retrieved his jeans and shirt. Pulling on his jeans he noted his chaps were half way up a tree. He threw a red plaid shirt and jeans in Jim's direction.

"Here!"

"Thanks!"

He watched Jim dress. Chubby but beautiful. Always beautiful.

He picked up some branches for the fire and made his way back to him.

There was just enough heat left in the embers he figured for the new fuel to catch in a few minutes.

Jim handed him another beaker of Whiskey and they sat down together, again, next to the fire, as it began to crackle back into life.

"Come on then, dead man. Let's be having you," said Jim.

"Time for your last confession."

Bones summoned all of his courage. He needed it.

"You remember that last week on the Ship, at the end of the Voyage?"

"I'll never forget it."

"How you and Spock had never got it on during the Voyage because, well, rules, and you nudging every girl in every port ..."

"I was not that bad!"

"No, you weren't. But that's what it felt like to Spock. And he wanted 'monogamy or nothing'. And had chosen 'nothing' for the duration of the voyage, knowing you had to use your body diplomatically every now and then and needed to be free to do what a Captain's got to do and seeing as how relations between a Commander and his Captain are not 'by the book'... " he shrugged. "You know what I'm trying to say."

Jim nodded assent.

"Difficult times."

"Yes, they were. And you were looking forward to them coming to an end with the end of the Voyage. What and how you hadn't worked out and you hadn't talked it over with Spock yet but you were determined that the two of you were going to be together."

"Yes, I was." Jim was noticeably tense.

"Remember how everyone was taking their leave of each other that week. How there were a lot of people either visiting each other's beds for the first time, afraid of never getting another chance or saying goodbye for the last time, knowing they'd never do it again, like as not. "

"Yes, I remember. What of it?"

Bones heart was pounding in his chest.

You remember the night that split the 3 of us up to the 4 corners of the Universe?

"How could I not? What of it?"

Bones swallowed.

"How that night you thought Spock was busy winding up Astronomics I dropped by your Quarters with a bottle of Bourbon in hand, eager to reminisce about old times and where we all went from here. How we ended up in bed. Making love. How I'd left the door unlocked and Spock walked in right at the moment you were promising me the known Universe. How he just stared. How we just stared back. How he just turned and went. How the next morning he wasn't on the Ship but had taken that Shuttle and left. For where, we didn't know. And how later, we learnt he had gone to Gol."

"Yes." Curt and crisp.

"Jim... I'm sorry... I knew he was coming to you that night ... to propose marriage. I was there to queer the pitch. I had no idea he'd go to Gol. I had no idea!"


	25. Chapter Twenty Five

"All I knew is that I didn't want to lose you to him."

"..."

"He'd confided in Christine what he'd planned to do and - of course - she'd immediately blabbed to me  all about it, about how fucking Romantic she thought it was that after all  this time he was finally going to make a play for Jim, how it was obvious that he'd win him and oh wasn't it just lovely. No! It wasn't! If Spock and you married it would be on the same terms Sarek and Amanda were married - if not tighter - and I couldn't lose you, Jim, I just cou."

The blow was a left hook, hard to the right side of Bones jaw. And it sent him flying backwards eight feet onto dirt behind him. Jim was on him in a minute, sitting astride him, his hands around Bones' throat, choking him.

"Do you know what you did?? " Jim growled, low and feral.

"Do you have any idea?  Of. What. You. Did. ??"

He tightened his hands around McCoy's neck as McCoy bucked and scrambled beneath him, his hands grasping first at dirt, then at Jim.

"Jim. Please." He managed to croak.

The grip was tightened and Bones thrashed some more under him. He was turning purple and blue. His eyes were beginning to bulge and roll back. Jim got right in his face.

"Do you know what you did???"

He released him like he was releasing shit from his hands, got up off him and walked over to a tree, leaning against it.  He yelled at the tree before falling down onto his haunches beside it and putting his hands up over his head, as if protecting himself from a falling sky.

Bones rolled himself into a foetal position and coughed until he was confident he could inhale again.

Then he tried to stand.

Realising he couldn't - the world was still spinning from that blow - he crawled slowly towards his friend and plonked himself down at his side.

"This is why we can't be together."

"Ya think?!" Jim practically shouted at him, before retreating back to his frog position.

"I'm sorry."

"I bet you are."

"I didn't want to lose you."

"You lost me."

"I can tell."

"Good,"

"I'm sorry."

"Do you know how much I suffered when he went to Gol??"

"I can only guess. You didn't let me stay around long enough to see much of it."

"Too right. I couldn't stand the sight of you."

"Yeah, we kept biting each other's head's off with him gone, with the guilt of it all."

"I lost myself, Len. I lost my fucking reason to Live."

"I'm sorry."

"Telling you to fuck off up the Limpopo was the only thing I could do to stop myself taking it out on you and it turns out you're the whole fucking reason for it!"

"I didn't want to lose you."

"I lost everything! Everything that made me me. Everything that made my life worth living. You took away the sun, Len!"

"I didn't mean to."

"What did you mean to do??"

"I had no game-plan beyond 'not losing you to Spock'. I loved you."

"My God. The Devil take both you and that sort of Love!"

"Jim! You don't mean that!"

"I do. The Devil take you, you twisted selfish, Son of a Bitch! You don't know what Love is! You haven't a clue! Love isn't selfish. It is not self-serving. It's is giving, sacrificial. It puts the needs of the other before the needs of the self on every occasion. You were thinking only of yourself and your own needs. Not mine. That's not Love. That's using. That's taking. That's wanting and feeding a want. You love by giving. Always by giving. Never by taking, Len. Never by taking. "

Bones crumbled to dust under the onslaught of his words.

He'd come into this knowing he was a dead man walking. Now he was no longer walking. He had received his condemnation and was damned in the eyes of those who had sought to love him. Weighed in the balance and found wanting.  Revealed at least as unlovable. Unworthy. Irredeemable. Unforgivable. The foulest of the foul.

He sighed. There was almost a certain freedom in looking at the bottom of an empty glass after you've drunk the poison it had contained. It's done. It can do you no more harm than it's doing right now. It is finished. There is a finality about it.

He'd been avoiding condemnation for so long it was almost a relief to finally look it in the eye. Almost, but not quite.

He looked up.

"I am sorry I was not more worthy of you, Jim."

"Oh, Bones."

And then the darnedest thing happened. He found the arms of his friend were around him and his friend was sobbing. And his friend was pulling him against him. Bones let himself be pulled. And he let his arms go around his friend. And found that he too was sobbing. And they just sobbed together, for what had passed, for what could never be undone. And they stayed like that, sobbing, consoling and being consoled, for several hours. Until dawn, in fact. By which time, both men had cried themselves dry.


	26. Chapter Twenty Six

Jim awoke in his lover's arms, as he had a thousand times before. But never like this; never with so much between them.

He held on tight and tried to will it away.

It would not budge.

Damn.

Damn it all to high heaven. He loved this man but by God, he had hurt him. He had changed his life. Changed Spock's. Taken away what should have been some of the best years of their lives and given them some of the very worst ones in return. Could he forgive that? How could he forgive that! He took away the sun, for Chrissakes.

'... buried me alive...'

He closed his eyes and sighed.

"I'm sorry, Jim. I'm so sorry."

He looked up and gently kissed his love on the lips.

Did he love this man?

Undoubtedly. With every fibre of his body.

Could he forgive him?

He paused.

He heard the answer in his head more than thought it.

No.

Damn.

Damn it.

Goddammit.

He doubted Spock could either.

"I do love you, Len."

"I know." So tired.

"..."

"Yeah."

"I'm sorry."

"Nothing to be sorry for, Jim. I knew the outcome to this going in."

He kissed Jim's forehead.

"I'm sorry I wasn't more worthy of ya."

Jim took his hand.

"Hush, or you'll have me crying again," he said, raising his hand to his mouth and kissing it.

Bones stroked the curve of Jim's face.

"I hurt," said Jim.

"Me too, Jim. Me too."

"I want you," said Jim.

Bones leaned in to kiss him.

"Ain't that always the way of it between us?"

"It is."

They rested their foreheads against each other, each man needing to break away and neither man wanting to.

"I have always loved you, Jim."

"I have always loved you, Bones."

"But we can't be together."

"No."

"No."

"Not like I want us to be, no."

Bones blinked, and looked up.

"Not at all, Jim. Not after this!"

Jim half-smiled at him.

"You're forgetting, Bones, in a little while, I won't remember 'this'."

Spock... The mind-wipe...

Bones stared at him.

"You're saying you don't want to remember _any_ of this??"

"I'll want to remember that we tried, and that there are problems that can't be gotten round, and maybe in which areas those problems lie, but no, I don't want to remember what the problems are, Len."

He squeezed Bones' hand.

"I need to be able to love you again."

Bones stared.

"Are you out of your cotton-picking mind?? We can't be together again - not after this?!"

"You wanted to be just a minute ago," said Jim with that zip-undoing smile of his.

"Well, I,..." Bones stuttered. "Ain't that always the way with us?"

"That's what I mean. That's what I want to go back to; the free and easy way it is between us. It can't be that way with this in my head. So this has to go," he said, pointing at his head.

"And then everything can go back to what passes for normal between us, is that it?" he asked, incredulous.

"I don't see why not, yes."

"You don't see why not... Jeez, _me_ for why not!"

"Explain."

"You just expect _me_ to go back to normal after 'all this'? After putting you through 'all this'? How can I go back to normal after putting you through all this?!" he squawked.

"Damn good question, Bones!" Jim was pissed at him.

"How can _you_ go back to normal after putting me through all this?? Hell, that's a damned good question! Come down off your high frigging horse a minute there, Bones. Isn't that just what you've been doing for the last umpteen years? Pretending things are normal with you _after putting me through all this_?" He was practically shouting now.

"Damn it Bones, you had no problem pretending everything was OK before, well you can damned well pretend everything is OK once again. If you want to work off your sins, let that be your penance, man. Pretend everything's OK and just love me when I fucking need you, Just like you've always done. Let that be your penance; pretending you never sinned in the first place. Do it for me. As penance." He spat out the words.

There was silence as Bones let them sink into his soul.

"Okay, Jim. I can do that for you. Seems the least I can do... Given the circumstances."

"Okay, then we're decided."

"Good."

"Good."

"We've got a way forward."

"Yep."

"Okay."

"Fine."

"That's what we'll do then."

All was far from fine but they had a way forward, at least.

"You tidy up the campsite. I'll go rouse Spock."

"Fine."

"Fine."

"Fine."

 

\-----


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